


Everything I Do

by meyari



Series: Left Behind But Not For Long [3]
Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meyari/pseuds/meyari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events in <em>Left Behind But Not For Long</em> and <em>Out of the Fire</em>, Jason courts Tim and tries to get him over the very understandable jumpiness he has from the red-headed Jason while dealing with craziness from Gotham and the Multiverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything I Do

Cover by Ctbn60—thanks so much sweetie!  


"So…" Tim's voice stopped as he tried to figure out what to add to the single word. Jason's story about his soldier and prostitute alternates hadn't been at all what he'd expected. Of course, Jason wasn't at all what he expected, or more accurately he was exactly what Tim had expected years ago, before he became Robin, before Jason died, before the world went completely and utterly wrong in every way possible and no one noticed.

"So?" Jason asked.

He was slouched in his chair with his hands in his pockets as if he never expected to move again. The burns on his face glistened, so obviously someone had treated them with something. He awkward way he held his legs reminded Tim of the cuts that had covered them when he'd disappeared.

"You have had appropriate treatment for your injuries, haven't you?" Tim asked.

"Yup," Jason said with a quiet chuckle. His wry grin seemed to say that he knew Tim had completely changed what he was going to say in the pause. "Synth skin over the cuts, some good burn cream on my burns and about eleventy million too many hours of sleep."

"Do you have more of the cream?" Tim asked.

"Um…"

Jason's expression went from calmly confident to little boy realizing he's about to get scolded. He shuffled about in his chair while making a show of checking his pockets. Tim huffed at him to hide the fact that he found Jason's expression oddly adorable, especially as Jason's cheeks flushed brilliantly red.

"Well, no, but I can go back and get some," Jason said defiantly. "Not like they kicked my ass out or anything."

"We will be going back for it," Tim declared and then blushed at the way Jason's expression lit up at the 'we'. "I need to get the gauntlet removed and I would like to thank Temperance and Jay for their assistance while I was there. It's only appropriate."

"Heh, sure thing," Jason said. "We can go anywhere you want, Timmy."

"Stop calling me that," Tim growled at him. He stood and glared down at Jason until he stood. "I'm not a child."

"No," Jason said so tenderly that it made Tim's heart pound in his chest. "You're definitely not. Did I tell you about the world where we were literally brothers, all of us including Steph and Damian?"

Tim resisted the urge to take a half step backwards when Jason pulled himself to his feet. He didn't move easily. In fact, he moved as though his entire body ached, which was something that he hadn't shown earlier at breakfast. They hadn't been sitting in the library for that long. That Jason would allow Tim to see that he was hurting made him bite his lip and cock his head. He wanted it to be real; the thought that it might not be made his stomach hurt.

"No, you didn't," Tim said. "You can tell me about it later. First we get the burn cream, then you get some more rest and I design myself a new suit. You are going to make me a new suit, right?"

"You betcha," Jason said. He offered a hand to Tim, grinning brightly. "I'll make you the best damned suit there ever was, with all sorts of cool tech in it. I mean, hell, why the fuck not? I know all this crap. I might as well put it to good use."

"Say," Tim said as he took Jason's hand, "do you think you could create an arm for Roy? He lost his, though given his condition I wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't use it properly."

"Sure," Jason nodded and reached for his belt. "Can probably come up with some good detox stuff for Roy from the Chief to help on that front, too. Whatever you want to do, Tim, I'm there for it. Of course, I still gotta figure out a better identity than fucking 'White Hood'. I'm no knight in shining armor and I'm not sticking with this damned white helmet."

They transferred worlds to the Batcave, Temperance and Jay's Batcave. It was empty and quiet at this time of day as the proper inhabitants of this 'verse went about their daylight lives. Tim shivered, awed in spite of himself at how easily Jason could travel worlds.

"Well, if you keep with the bird theme," Tim said in as steady of a voice as he could, "I suppose you could be Bluejay."

"Nah, I was thinking Phoenix or Firebird or something like that," Jason said. "Bluejay doesn't quite fit anymore. Did think of it when I was younger but not now."

"Just as long as you don't disappear the way the firebird does in the legends," Tim murmured as they headed upstairs. He felt like an intruder but Jason climbed the stairs up to the mansion with perfect confidence.

"I'll never disappear on you again," Jason promised in that too-tender tone of voice. He paused before opening the secret door to look at Tim. It was too dark in the little hallway to see his expression clearly but Tim still blushed.

"Go with phoenix then," Tim said while making a 'get on with it' gesture. "Since you say you'll always come back."

"I will. You can fucking guarantee that." Jason caught Tim's hand and lifted it so that he could kiss the tips of his fingers as if they were in some old-fashioned romance novel. "I will always come back to you. Always."

Tim snatched his hand back and stiffened his back against the way Jason chuckled at his violent blush. They were nearly in the kitchen before Tim heard voices. It sounded very like the breakfast they'd just left, just a couple of hours later than normal.

"Hey Tim!" Jason called as he sauntered into the kitchen as if he owned it. "You got any more of that burn cream crap I can take? Tim kind of insists on be keeping the burns properly treated."

"Well, of course I do!" Temperance huffed.

Her face lit up when Tim cautiously stepped into the kitchen after Jason. Tim squawked in spite of himself when she launched herself into a hug that almost knocked him from his feet. Jay was grinning at him with obvious delight. Bruce smiled his tiny 'good to see you' smile on. Damian looked disgusted but he was glaring at Jason, not Tim. Steph was at the stove flipping pancakes while Alfred retrieved what looked like blueberry scones from the oven.

"You want some?" Steph asked with a casual wave at the current batch of pancakes.

"No, thank you," Tim said and laughed silently as Temperance let him go abruptly. "We just had breakfast back home. I wouldn't mind a scone. I love blueberry scones."

The others laughed, even Bruce and Damian. Jason grinned and gestured for Tim to join him. Temperance tugged him over to sit next to her, despite Jay and Jason's identical pouting glares at them. Jason rolled his eyes and tugged his stool over next to Tim.

"I think every single Tim in the entire Multiverse likes blueberry scones," Jason said as Alfred passed each of them one and then put the butter in front of them. "Or at least all of them that have access to scones anyway."

"He actually checked the dietary preferences of the Tim's he encountered?" Tim asked Temperance.

"You wouldn't _believe_ some of the things he checked," Temperance sighed while rolling her eyes. "The data we pulled off of his gauntlet needs to be seen to be believed."

"Hmm," Tim said. He stole the butter out from under Jason's hand and started carefully adding just the right amount of butter to his hot scone. Not too much to drip off but enough to properly soak it and make it delectable. "I think I'd like to see that later."

Jason squawked, apparently in equal parts for the thought of Tim seeing his research and for the theft of the butter. Temperance smiled a wicked smile that made Tim stare at her before sticking her tongue out at Jason.

"I'll show you everything you ever wanted then," Temperance promised in just the right tone of voice to make Jay blush, Jason growl and Steph laugh from her place at the stove.

+++++

"Ah. There you are."

Roy whirled to face Red Hood, his knives at ready. He knew that voice, knew his opponent despite the way his helmet had changed. Instead of a blood-red helmet, he had a stylized phoenix over the face portion. It functioned like a red-gold mask over the solid helmet. The background was covered in bluish flames. It should have made Roy laugh, except for the way Jason stood. The man looking back at Roy wasn't like the Jason that Roy remembered. This Jason stood tall and confident without the cockiness and rage that had always marked him before.

"Stay out of my way," Roy snarled at him.

"Yeah, not going to happen, Roy," Jason said. "Told Red Robin I'd do my best to help you and Nightwing's wanting to talk to you too. 'Sides, I got something for you."

"What?" Roy asked. He narrowed his eyes, watching for whatever Jason was going to do. The attack had to come soon. Different helmet or not, Jason was Red Hood. An attack was inevitable, not that Roy was going to be unprepared.

"A new arm that'll let you use the bow again," Jason said far too calmly. "And a way to deal with the nanites eating you alive."

Roy's guard dropped involuntarily. That couldn't be true. No one had been able to get rid of them. Nothing had stopped the pain, no matter how hard or what he'd tried to deal with it. During his moment of complete and utter disbelief Jason pulled a gun that was way too advanced, beyond anything he'd seen on earth. The pulse of energy from it stole his ability to move better than any taser he'd encountered.

"There we go," Jason said cheerfully. "Don't worry, I'm not lying. I really do have an arm for you and I really can take care of the fucking nanites."

He put a hand on Roy's chest and touched his belt. There was a disorienting lurch and then they were somewhere else. Roy couldn't turn his head but that didn't mean that he didn't recognize Dick's hands as he helped Jason carry Roy to the bathroom. The old arm came off and Jason hummed under his breath while doing something to his arm that Roy couldn't really feel.

"Sorry about this," Dick murmured. He was supporting Roy's weight while Jason worked. "Jason swears he can fix it."

"Thanks so fucking much for the belief there, Dickie-bird," Jason drawled. He pulled off his helmet and passed it to Tim who had appeared at the door to the bathroom. "I save the entire fucking Multiverse and you can't trust that I can fix one goddamned arm?"

"That's completely different," Dick said in his loftiest tone, the one he reserved for usage when he knew he was flatly wrong and didn't intend to admit it without tickling or large quantities of spoiling.

"Uh-huh, sure it is, Dick," Jason drawled while doing something that sent a shock of pure agony through Roy's paralyzed body. "Sure it is. Okay, that gets the nanites out. Tim, hand me the synth-skin, will you?"

Roy missed eighty-five percent of what happened after that too stunned by the bane of his life being dealt with so easily. By the time Jason pressed a little rod to Roy's forehead and restored his mobility, there was already a new arm attached to his stump. The constant pain had faded to a dull ache that was sort of like having stubbed his toe an hour or so ago.

"There you go," Jason said. "Got some medicine for you to take to ensure any leftover nanites are destroyed but other than that you're pretty much good to go."

"Medicine," Roy said in the right way to turn it into a question.

He turned to look at his new arm and stared in awe. It looked like an arm, a real arm. There was a metallic sheen to it but it moved and the muscles rippled as if they were real when Roy slowly rotated his wrist and wiggled his fingers. He could feel the movements. The new arm felt like it was really his arm, not a prosthetic.

"What did you do?" Roy whispered.

"Fixed it," Jason said with a shrug. He offered a glass of water and one large red pill to Roy. "Trust me, this is necessary too. Down the hatch."

Roy took the glass with his real hand and then whimpered as his new fingers allowed him to pick up the pill with ease. "I can feel it."

"Based on the tech in my welder's gloves," Jay said with a smirk that was entirely too proud of himself. "Go on. Get it over with, will you?"

Roy laughed a little shakily and swallowed the pill, chasing it down his throat with the water. Dick grinned and rubbed Roy's back. He looked almost as happy about the change as Roy felt, at least until Roy's stomach abruptly roiled. Jason stood and went to the doorway, looking at Dick and Roy.

"You'll be pretty sick for about half an hour," Jason said with an apology in his eyes if not on his lips. "Sorry. Didn't want you to refuse it."

"What did you do?" Dick demanded.

Roy groaned and scrambled for the toilet. He had never gotten this sick this fast before in his life. It felt like his entire body was rejecting the 'medicine' or whatever it really was. Sweat poured off of him as the nausea increased.

"Made it so he'll never get drunk or high again as well as dealt with any leftover nanites," Roy heard Jason say. "He'll still respond to pain meds but only when he's actually physically in pain. Phantom pains and addiction won't affect him anymore. The addiction caused a chemical change in his brain, Dick. This set it right again."

"You asshole!" Dick snarled. "You should have said something!"

Roy didn't bother with anger. He was too busy worshipping the toilet for anything but misery. By the time it ended about half an hour later, Roy would have gladly beaten Jason through the floor, if only he'd had the strength to move.

"I'm so sorry," Dick said for the millionth time as he wiped Roy's face clean. "Seriously, I had no idea he was going to do that. He _said_ that he could help with the nanites, not that he'd indulge in brain alteration without permission."

"Dick?" Roy's voice came out raspy and harsh.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up, will you?" Roy groaned as he hauled himself to his feet with Dick tucked under his good arm like a living crutch. "I got it. You didn't know. Where is he?"

"Out in the other room with Tim," Dick sighed. "Just so you know, they're… something now."

"Something?" Roy asked. He and Dick had been 'something' once upon a time, before his life had gone to hell in a hand basket and he'd lost the little girl who gave his life meaning.

"Don't know what else to call it." Dick shrugged. "There's a lot you haven't heard. Once you're rested and fed I'll tell you all about it."

They headed out into the bedroom and then into the living room of what looked to be a fairly recently set up apartment. Tim and Jason were on one end of a huge L-shaped couch, with Tim smearing some sort of cream over some faint burns on Jason's face.

"I still can't believe you did that," Tim complained. "You should have given him a choice."

"You don't give addicts a choice of continuing to be addicts, especially not when they're higher than a kite, Tim," Jason sighed. "He'll be fine. It'll suck like hell to deal with the loss of Lian but I don't think Dick will let him do it alone now that Bruce is back."

Roy looked Dick with surprise. Dick blushed and shrugged. Apparently there was a lot he hadn't known. Bruce returning from the dead was nearly as surprising as Jason doing it years ago. He turned back to Jason and Tim, just in time to see Tim open his mouth to protest further. Jason grinned and leaned forward to kiss Tim so tenderly that Roy felt like he was a voyeur. Tim's lips were glossy with the cream when they parted a minute later.

"Don't fuss," Jason said with a look that made Roy blush, much less Tim. "It'll work out."

"You still should have handled it differently," Tim complained very weakly while wiping the glossy cream off of his lips.

"Agreed," Roy said. "So what's this about Bruce coming back and what the fuck changed you from Asshole Deluxe into Mr. Nice Guy?"

"Oh fuck you, I am not Mr. Nice Guy!" Jason growled at Roy while Tim and Dick snickered. "Get your ass on the couch, will you? You're about to fall down."

"Make with the talking," Roy groaned as Dick helped him collapse somewhat gracefully into the other end of the couch. "I think I've missed a hell of a lot."

"You have no idea," Jason laughed, "no idea at all!"

+++++

"So why are we here? This isn't a place that I'd expect to find anything for my new suit."

Jason grinned at Tim's skeptical expression. They'd spent the last several days since Roy's rescue and reunion with Dick working on determining exactly what Tim wanted from his new suit. To say that he was demanding was putting it far too mildly but Jason didn't mind. It was fun to get to use his science and programming skills for something more productive than saving the Multiverse from his fucking double.

"We're here for lunch, Tim," Jason reiterated. "Not for tools or anything for the suit. Lunch."

Tim's flat stare made Jason laugh out loud. Rather than answer the highly threatening expression, Jason grabbed Tim's hand and dragged him into the little restaurant that had become his favorite lunch spot during his trip home.

"Ah, you brought your boyfriend!" Jenny, the gal behind the counter, said with a huge grin when they went up to give their orders. "He's a cutie. Why's he looking death at you?"

"Didn't believe me when I said I was taking us out for lunch," Jason said and shrugged. "Two of your finest, no onions on his gyro. Plus a vanilla milkshake with all the fixings and my normal root beer float and coffee."

"You got it, Jay," Jenny said. She bellowed their orders to the back, bustling around to make the milkshake and float.

Tim tapped Jason's shoulder hard enough to hurt a little. His face was so red that he looked like he'd been dropped in scalding water. Jason leaned against the counter and cocked his head to the side. It made Tim drop his gaze. Now there was a little hint of a smile on his lips.

"Is this your idea of a date?" Tim murmured.

"Nah, not enough sex for that," Jason answered. He laughed at the way Tim's ears went beet red. "They honestly have terrific gyros and you'll love the shake. They use homemade ice cream with real vanilla from Mexico. Plus whipped cream and nuts and a little drizzle of chocolate syrup on top."

"Here you go!" Jenny said, shoving their drinks over the counter. A spoon stuck up from the middle of the whipped cream, standing proud along side the straw that wouldn't be useful until the shakes melted a bit. "I'll bring your coffee out when I bring your gyros, guys. Enjoy!"

"Thanks darling," Jason said.

He let Tim grab his shake before guiding him to the booth in the back by the bathrooms. It was quiet and secluded from the other tables by a half wall and a beaded screen dangling from the ceiling. Jenny grinned at their choice of tables but didn't say a thing. No one in this 'verse would make a big deal about two guys together but Jason knew that Tim would be mortified by doing anything in public, even if the restaurant was mostly empty right now.

"It is good," Tim murmured. He took a sip of his milkshake, licking whipped cream off of his lip because he hadn't bothered with the straw. "Really good."

"They've got great food and since none of us were ever born here it's a place that I could relax," Jason said. "I actually set up a bank account here because I was coming back so often for food. They have some incredible restaurants, seriously. Hotels suck so I usually stayed somewhere else but the food cannot be beat."

Tim laughed his silent laugh, licking off another whipped cream mustache. Jason waved for Tim to lean closer after the next sip of milkshake. He stole a quick kiss, licking the whipped cream off of Tim's lip. It didn't bother him at all when Jenny chuckled from the counter but Tim jumped and blushed again.

"Jason!" Tim hissed.

"No one knows us here, Tim," Jason murmured. "They don't know Tim Drake. There is no Jason Todd. We're just two guys out for lunch together. It's okay. Gays are perfectly accepted here. I'd never take you somewhere dangerous, not without preparing you first."

"This is your idea of a date," Tim said. His voice wasn't half as flat as it should have been and his lips were quirked in a little smile that was partly flattered and partly shy. "I should have known."

"I'd like it to be," Jason admitted as he caught Tim's free hand and squeezed it gently. "Just afraid you're going to pop me one if I call it a date."

Tim laughed almost audibly that time. Neither of them said anything as Jenny brought their gyros and Jason's coffee. The way that Tim's eyes went wide at his first bite of gyro made Jason grin. They were halfway done eating when Tim paused and looked into Jason's eyes.

"It's not a bad date," Tim said. "But I was hoping to get some of those 'tactile enhancement pads' for my suit today."

"We can go do that after lunch," Jason promised.

"No, I think I'm going to want dessert first," Tim said with a mischievous grin that made his eyes light up. "You know a good place for green tea ice cream?"

Jason laughed and nodded. "Just up the block actually. It's run by this little old Japanese lady who will knock you on your _ass_ if you get in her way. Got some adzuki bean ice cream. And sakura, too. Just watch out for her elbows. They're wicked."

Tim laughed and took another sip of his milkshake. He gestured for Jason to lean closer and then kissed him with the sweet vanilla mixture on his lips. Jason shivered, letting the tip of his nose rub against Tim's. It was definitely one of his better ideas to go out to lunch with Tim. At least there was no possibility of anyone interrupting them in this 'verse, unlike dates in Gotham.

+++++

"So how's it fit?" Jason asked.

He didn't try and go into the bathroom with Tim, content to wait until he came out on his own. The first time putting on a new suit had always been a private thing for him. Whether it was a private thing for Tim or not, Jason didn't know. At least for now he'd give Tim privacy.

"Hmm, it's a bit tight," Tim said in a thoughtful, not quite complaining tone of voice. "I'm fairly certain it's going to chafe."

"Groin, knees, pits or waist?" Jason asked.

Tim laughed quietly at Jason's question as he stepped out of the bathroom and came to stretch in front of Jason. They hadn't put the fabric over the underlying suit yet. Tim hadn't decided on the final design he wanted for it. The Kevlar and ballistic plate underlay were plain black. It had circuitry overlaid on that for the various technological components they were designing into the suit. The shield belt had been a challenge to redesign. That was stretched over Tim's torso and down his arms. The tactile sensory pads hadn't been added yet because they were part of the gloves. What with all the components and the armor that they'd added, the suit itself did look tight pretty much everywhere.

"Yeah, that will chafe, won't it?" Jason commented.

"I'm afraid so," Tim agreed. He winced and stopped stretching. "I think adding the circuitry tightened it up quite a bit more than expected. The initial fit was perfect."

"I can work on that," Jason said. "I was thinking that the circuitry should go under the armor anyway, though the insulation for it will add another layer so…"

He waved one hand and Tim nodded that he understood. More adjustments, more fittings and a lot more work before his new suit was done. Tim went back into the bathroom, pushing the door shut without latching it. Jason bit down on the urge to go in and watch Tim strip. As much as he wanted to jump Tim's bones, he was absolutely determined not to scare him off. After all the crap that Tim had been through since Jay left, most of which he'd heard from Steph, some from Damian and Dick, there was no way he'd be ready for much of anything soon. Though the kisses so far had been very promising.

"Damn it." Tim grunted as if he was stuck.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't get this thing off," Tim complained. "Something's caught."

"Want me to give you a hand?" Jason asked.

"Well, I'm not going to wear this for the rest of my life," Tim snapped.

He made more frustrated-sounding grunts that made Jason grin. The grin faded once Jason stepped into the bathroom with Tim. Tim had the suit halfway down his arms but the circuitry had gotten caught on the back armor plates so he'd created a highly effective straitjacket. That wasn't what made Jason swallow hard and adjust his pants though.

"Quit staring at me and help," Tim said with a frustrated glare over his shoulder that should have made Jason either jump or laugh. It did neither.

"Sorry," Jason said while battling his attraction to Tim.

This was the first time he'd seen Tim semi-naked and the differences between him and the other Tim's he had interacted with couldn't be more obvious. The scars, the hard lines of muscle that defined his body so clearly, made his pulse raise and his mouth go dry.

He carefully unhooked the caught plate and circuitry, swallowing down a moan of arousal as Tim stripped the suit off of his torso and shoved it towards the floor. Jason let his eyes trace the muscles of Tim's shoulders, the lines of scars that marked his back, and the way he moved as he removed the suit.

"Are you staring at me?" Tim asked without turning around to face Jason.

"Maybe a little?" Jason said with a chuckle that sounded strained to his ears.

The amused, flirty look that Tim threw over his shoulder didn't reduce Jason's arousal at all. All it did was give him hope that eventually he would win Tim over. He reached out and pulled Tim backwards into his arms. The common sense that life had beaten into him screamed that it was a bad idea but Jason didn't care. He needed to hold Tim right now, this instant.

"Jason…" Tim said with just enough of a growl to make it a question, but not enough to make it a threat.

Jason bent his head and pressed a tender kiss right on top of one of the scars on Tim's shoulder. Tim shivered in his arms, arching just a little as if he wanted much more but was afraid to ask for it. Rather than giving in to the urge to let his hands slide southwards towards Tim's boxers, Jason hugged him tightly.

"Jason?" This time it was a question, full of puzzlement and wary confusion.

"You're perfect, you know that?" Jason murmured into Tim's ear. "That's all. You're… fucking… perfect."

"Ah. Well. If you're done with your tender moment I would like to get dressed again," Tim said.

His fingers drifted over Jason's hands around his stomach in a caress that was so light that it almost wasn't there. After a long moment, he tugged at Jason's arms until Jason let go. Tim picked up the suit and pushed it into Jason's arms. A pleased, shy little smile flitted across his lips as Tim pushed Jason out of the bathroom and latched the door. Jason chuckled, carefully folding the suit with shaking hands as Tim dressed. Yeah, Tim might not be ready for everything yet but progress was definitely being made.

+++++

Jason sighed and rolled over for the thousandth time since he went to bed. He wasn't used to staying in one place anymore. The urge to go somewhere new, somewhere else than here, was nearly overwhelming. Right now, the only thing keeping him in the Manor and this 'verse was Tim.

He threw off the covers and stood up. The others were off patrolling but Tim was there. Without his completed suit he was reluctant to go out. Jason could have gone, probably should have just to burn off some of his excess energy, but he hadn't. He wasn't about to leave Tim home alone in the Manor. It had to be driving Tim nuts knowing that everyone else was out there while he was stuck home. The least Jason could do was keep him company.

"Knowing Tim, he's not sleeping either," Jason chuckled.

He headed for Tim's room, peeking in and smiling at the empty still-made bed. Where Jason's room had already become a bit of a pit with clothes strewn across the floor and circuitry sketches littering every other available surface, Tim's room was mathematically precise and clean. Jason shut the door and headed down to the Cave.

"You should be sleeping," Tim commented as Jason exited the elevator.

"So should you."

"You could have gone out," Tim said. His shoulders stiffened at the thought of it, making Jason smile.

"Eh, I'm out of practice with that sort of thing," Jason said. "I'd need someone to make sure I didn't fuck it up."

Tim swallowed a laugh. The wry look he threw at Jason was enough to make Jason grin at him as cheesily as possible, just to see if he could make Tim blush from the implication that Jason needed Tim to keep him out of trouble. It worked brilliantly as Tim's cheeks went flaming red and his ears started to glow from the force of his blush.

"I'm not sure that's possible," Tim commented.

"Mmm, maybe not," Jason said. "But I really am out of practice with crime fighting. I've gotten way better at the detective crap but out and out bashing heads, well; I haven't exactly been doing that. Didn't want to take the time away from finding my home, you know?"

"Oh. Right. Home."

Tim squirmed in the chair. The blush crept down his neck. If Jason had been keeping track like he did with Temperance, he would have given himself two points for that one. He had no interest in keeping points with Tim, though. All he wanted was to show Tim that he was serious about loving him and wanting to take care of him.

"Yeah, home," Jason said.

He ran a finger over the back of Tim's neck, tracing the edge of his hairline there. Tim shivered and moved away from Jason's finger. Rather than say anything he raised a hand to bat Jason's arm away. Jason caught his arm and pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of Tim's wrist.

"Will you stop that?" Tim whispered urgently while glaring at Jason.

"Why?" Jason asked. He released Tim's wrist.

"Them," Tim said.

He pointed at the monitor where four red dots moved around Gotham on the hyper-accurate map Bruce had created and kept up-to-date over the years. Jason laughed and leaned one hip against the monitor. His cocky grin made Tim huff and then shake his head in dismay. Tim abruptly started and focused on the monitors, calling up several cameras in Batman's area.

"Yes, I'm here," Tim said. "No, Phoenix joined me. Yes, I'll ask. You up to helping out?"

"Sure," Jason said. "Lemme get my gear. Trouble?"

"Joker's apparently set a few dozen bombs around Gotham," Tim said while tapping urgently on the keyboard to track their locations down. "If O and I can find them, can you deal with them?"

"You got it," Jason said. "I'll be right back. Start searching."

"On it," Tim said.

Jason ran for the stairs, taking them three at a time to get to his room as quickly as possible. Looked like his plan of keeping Tim company just got shot to shit but that was okay. Stopping Joker's plans was worth it any day, though he'd still rather stay with Tim than go out and fight.

+++++

The rocky plain was dotted with craters, fourteen of them so far. The fucking Joker's bombs were hella powerful. Some of the craters were easily big enough to swallow a city block, though a few of them were obviously much weaker, as if he'd run out of explosives or gotten bored with making big bombs. Jason switched back home.

"Back."

"Three more to go," Tim said in Jason's ear. "Next one is on Second and Madison, third floor, hidden behind a desk."

"On it," Jason said.

He transferred to the coordinates of the next bomb. It took precious seconds to locate the fucking thing. Rather than trying to disengage it from the wall, Jason grabbed it and shifted back to a wasteland 'verse where nothing lived. Jason flung the bomb away, transferred back home, shifted onwards to the next bomb, lather, rinse, repeat.

"Last one!" Tim said, this time with audible excitement in his voice. "Roof of that old abandoned tenement on 198th and Aspen, by the chimney stack."

"I'm…there," Jason said, pausing in the middle for the transfer of location making his radio cut out.

He reached for the bomb but the timer blinked 1… 0… and then his shields kicked in. Jason didn't have time to curse before the blast knocked into his shields and kicked his legs out from under him. This time he went with it, unlike the time with his dragon alternate self. The building crumbled underneath him. It was coming apart at the seams, which was no fucking surprise. The thing was decrepit and rotted through. The blast was fierce enough that Jason's eyebrows felt a little singed but he wasn't hurt.

The roof gave way under his hands and knees, sending Jason falling towards the next floor, which was falling out underneath him into another floor and then down to the basement. He didn't think that anyone was in the building but he slapped his monitors and managed one indistinct curse word before transferring over a few dozen feet to grab the homeless kid who'd gotten himself into this particular hell.

It felt like a decade but Jason knew it had been less than a second. The kid was a little scorched, had a few cuts but that was it. The ground was coming quick so Jason transferred them out of the collapsing building and over to the hospital.

"Ahh!" one of the nurses there screamed as Jason appeared.

"Sorry, emergency," Jason said. He helped the kid stand since his legs didn't look very steady. "Got caught in a collapsing building. Looks like burns and a few bruises but he should be okay."

"Oh, um, thank you?" the nurse said. She caught the kid as Jason stepped back. "Who are you?"

"Nobody special," Jason said with a cocky grin behind his mask. "Go by Phoenix. Good luck, kid."

Jason transferred back to the building collapse, sighing that he hadn't managed to get to the bomb in time. The building was a total loss but it looked like none of the buildings surrounding it would burn down. The tenement had been surrounded by vacant lots instead of being pressed up against other buildings. There were fire engines wailing in the distance. It sounded to him like they were coming so Jason nodded and transferred back to the Batcave.

"Phoenix! Answer me!" Tim snapped, staring at the screen as if his heart had stopped. His face was so white that he looked like he was made of paper, not flesh and blood.

"Right here," Jason laughed.

His skin felt tingly from the adrenaline rush. Jason pulled off the helmet and ruffled his hair to get rid of the helmet head effect. Tim whirled, staring at him with his heart in his eyes. Laughter bubbled up. It was just the side effect of nearly dying. He knew that, had lived it so fucking many times in the past, but Jason couldn't bring himself to care.

He'd saved the kid, lost the building which sucked, been in the middle of a fucking explosion and come out with just some dust, soot and sweat to show for it. Tim stared at him with worry in his eyes, at least until Jason grabbed him and swept him up for a kiss that made his lips tingle just as much as the rest of him was.

"Mmph!" Tim mumbled against Jason's lips. He gasped as Jason let him go again. "What is wrong with you?"

"Sorry, Tim," Jason said with a delicious shiver of pure arousal. "Just… damn, I forgot what it's like sometimes. Getting home was a slog, 'verse after 'verse after 'verse. I didn't do this while I was gone."

"You're punch-drunk," Tim sighed.

"At the very least jazzed on the adrenaline," Jason confirmed with another uncontrollable laugh. "Fuck, I'm probably scorched and bruised to hell and gone but right now I feel like I could take on the world."

"Fine," Tim said with a roll of his eyes that only made him cuter, "go help Dick beat up Joker's henchmen."

"You got it," Jason said and pulled his helmet back on.

He transferred over to where Dick was in a huge battle with the thugs. Yeah, it had been way too long since he had a proper brawl. Jason plowed into the creeps, using fists, feet and his pulse gun set on its lowest stun setting to take them down. He really needed to do more of this, especially when he had a sleepless night. When he got back he'd have to see if he could coax a few more kisses out of Tim, too.

"About time you showed up," Dick called as he vaulted over a couple of thugs rushing at him.

"Hey, I had to get out of the fire before I could show up here," Jason called back. "It's what phoenixes do, you know?"

He laughed at the confused looks on the thug's faces. Maybe he should add a small fire effect to his arrivals, just to add to the illusion but Tim might yell, so probably not. Either way, fuck it was good to be back in action!

+++++

The crowbar lifted up in slow motion, blood drops falling like little jewels from the end of it. When it came back down he could see the way it cut through the air. It hit like a mountain had landed on him, driving the air out of his lungs and sending shards of pain flying through his body.

The crowbar went up and then down onto his skull, up and down to a different location on his body, picking up speed until it was a blur and all he could feel was pain. His lungs had stopped, his heart no longer beat, but still his eyes worked and the laughter rolled on filling all time and space with horrific giggles that drove all rational thought from what was left of his mind. The white laughing mask of the Joker's face was splattered with blood that matched the ruby lips stretched in a too-wide-to-be-human smile.

"Jason!"

Jason erupted from his bed, shouting something incoherent while shoving whoever or whatever had grabbed him away. The room didn't match with the vision of the Joker in his head. There should be blood and laughter and pain and there wasn't and it was more than he could cope with for a moment. He stumbled towards the wall, towards the light streaming through the window only to collapse as shudders robbed him of the ability to move. Behind him there was a grunting oof, immediately followed by the sound of someone falling. He knew the sound of that voice, of that body's fall.

"T-Tim?" Jason asked.

"You were whimpering," Tim said. He'd collapsed on the floor next to Jason's bed. From the way he was clutching his ribs he might have hit the footboard on the way down. Nothing but calm sympathy was in his eyes. "I thought it was better to wake you up."

Jason nodded. He tried to say something but all that came out was a wheezing gasp that was so fucking far from a laugh. A nightmare, he'd had a nightmare. Fucking goddamned nightmare that he'd thought he'd put behind him ages ago. Stupid Joker. Tim frowned at him and came over, cautiously kneeling by Jason, still clutching his side. He must have cracked his ribs.

"Hey, what happened?" Tim whispered.

His hand was warm and dry against Jason's cold, sweaty cheek. Jason leaned closer and put his head on Tim's shoulder. The shudders were getting worse and he still couldn't fucking talk, couldn't deal with the image of the Joker's goddamned grin in his mind's eye. Tim didn't do anything besides wrap his arms around Jason.

"Nightmare," Jason whispered a little bit later, once his tongue stopped feeling like leather wrapped in flannel.

"Joker?" Tim asked.

"Yeah."

"…I'm sorry," Tim said so sadly that he had to be blaming himself for Jason's nightmare. "I shouldn't have asked you to go out last night."

"Not your fault, Tim," Jason said into Tim's neck. "Get those damned nightmares anytime I see a clown."

Tim pulled back a little. Jason looked at him and started chuckling at the surprise in Tim's eyes. He shrugged and dragged himself to his feet before helping Tim stand. When Tim hesitantly sat on the bed with Jason he was a little surprised but it was nice to have someone to hold. He still felt like crap after that dream. Tim felt exactly right in the circle of Jason's arms. Holding him pushed the nightmare away better than almost anything else could have.

"You're really that afraid of clowns?" Tim asked. He smiled against Jason's chest, settling into the circle of Jason's arms as if he belonged there and knew it.

"Always have been," Jason admitted with little shame. "Clowns are fucking creepy, all of them. Joker just takes it to the logical extreme. Used to scream every time I saw Ronald when I was a brat."

Tim started snickering, the quiet little snickers that were more repetitive huffs of air than laughs. When he looked up at Jason the sorrow and sympathy were gone, replaced by relief and amusement. Jason grinned, feeling better already because he'd made Tim laugh.

"Spiders," Tim said with a sage nod that would be more appropriate on Alfred than on him.

"…You scramble around on rooftops and in abandoned warehouses and you're afraid of spiders?" Jason asked after a moment's shock.

"Yeah," Tim said with a shrug that was actually casual instead of only pretending at being casual. "Started fairly recently after the whole Council of Spiders assassin thing, actually. I thought they were creepy before but now… well, they're a bit worse."

Jason gently squeezed Tim's shoulders, making a mental note to track down what exactly Tim had gone through to make him scared of spiders. He had to get Tim talking about some of his adventures while Jason was gone instead of spending all his time talking about himself. The sunshine pouring through the window made Jason think that breakfast must almost be ready.

"Should get cleaned up," Jason commented.

"In a bit," Tim murmured. "There's no rush."

He set his head on Jason's shoulder, looking out the window and sighing as if he was perfectly content to stay there for the rest of his life. Jason smiled and brushed his lips over the crown of Tim's head. If Tim was comfortable then Jason was perfectly prepared to stay right there as long as he wanted, at least until it was time to bind Tim's ribs.

"Fine," Jason murmured. "Whatever you want, Tim."

+++++

Tim was certain that Jason knew he was watching. None of them were unobservant, to put it mildly, but Jason seemed to have developed a sort of inner radar that told him whenever Tim was close. He would have put it down to the gauntlet that Temperance and Jay had given Jason but that couldn't be it. The gauntlet was resting on the bedside table. It was the first time since Jason's return that Tim had seen his arm naked. The skin under the gauntlet was distinctly paler than the rest of his arm.

"Problem?" Jason asked while carefully shaving under his nose.

"No."

Jason's eyes flicked towards Tim in the mirror. They wrinkled at the corners. On Bruce it would have been a frown being born. When Clark did it, it was indicative of worry. For Dick it was a sure sign that Tim was seconds away from a hug attack. Tim couldn't remember Alfred doing that particular sort of wrinkle around his eyes unless lives were on the line.

When the fake Jason had done it, it usually meant that Tim should watch out for an attack sometime in the next minute or so.

The wrinkles went away and Jason turned to look at Tim with a question in his eyes. Tim forced his shoulders down and made his fingers unclench. This wasn't as easy as it should be, as it could have been if Jason hadn't been replaced on his way home. Memories of the past kept interfering with the… Tim hesitated and smiled softly as he realized that 'joy' was actually the correct word to use in this instance. He rested his head against the doorjamb, watching Jason's fierce attention to him despite his careful efforts to shave without nicking himself.

Joy. Happiness. Love. They weren't words that Tim was used to applying to his life. Other people's lives, certainly. Dick was full of joy, especially now that he'd given the Batsuit back to Bruce. Steph practically oozed happiness lately. And for all that Clark and Bruce thought that they were being secretive, their love affair was so blatant that Tim had heard small children talking about it on the street.

Still, Tim had never expected that he'd have someone dedicated to giving him those things. Even when he'd been crushing on Dick and then Jason he'd never thought that he'd actually get either of them. Love and joy were things that happened to others, not to Timothy Drake.

"You're thinking too hard," Jason commented while rinsing his razor.

"Always."

Jason laughed and nodded. He threw a grin over his shoulder that was nearly like being stabbed in the chest to Tim. Those wrinkles around his eyes had reappeared, this time with a smile that was anything but smirky. Tim would have thought that Jason's face was not designed for expressing that level of joy, if he hadn't just seen it happen. Even Clark's grins of delight couldn't be that warm and open.

When Jason returned to his shaving, Tim straightened and stepped into the bathroom. He could see the tension in Jason's shoulders, could infer the questions going through Jason's mind. Tim stood behind him, just close enough to feel the warmth of Jason's body without touching his naked back. Jason's eyes had questions in them as he carefully shaved his neck, eyes rhythmically flicking over his shoulder in the mirror to look at Tim. Tim deliberately kept his face as expressionless as possible.

Scars littered Jason's body. His back was covered with them. Some Tim knew were from battles. A couple he knew came from the Joker. There were some that looked new so they had to have come from battles on his way back home. Just thinking the word 'home' made Tim's cheek's stain red. Jason chuckled and the wrinkles appeared around his eyes again.

Tim rested his fingers against one particularly long scar that bisected Jason's back. Jason froze. He seemed to stop breathing for a long moment. When he did finally let his breath out it was so shaky that Tim smirked. He'd never had this much power over someone else before, at least not in this arena or in such a positive way.

It was nice. It was far more than nice. Tim didn't allow his inherent paranoia to tell him that it had to be a trick, that the universe didn't allow Timothy Drake to have such things. He suspected that if the universe, God or anyone else tried to keep Jason away from him, Jason would tear it all down and rebuild everything so that the could be together.

"What happened here?" Tim asked.

"Tentacle Dick," Jason said far too calmly. "He had a couple of tentacles with these razor sharp claws on them and that's from getting free of him."

"Ow."

Tim ran his fingers down the length of the scar, calculating how much blood Jason must have lost to that one wound. Adding in the broken kneecap that Jason had already told him about and several other puckered scars that looked nearly identical, Tim realized that Jason must have come very close to dying escaping from that particular universe.

"I'm glad you made it out of there," Tim murmured while pressing a chaste kiss against Jason's back.

Jason jerked and then started cursing while grabbing for a towel. Tim stepped to the side and then laughed. A quarter inch long nick on Jason's neck seeped blood that stained his towel. It wasn't a big cut or probably even a terribly painful one. Still, Tim couldn't help but laugh at the blush on Jason's cheeks and the curses falling from his lips.

"Love hurts," Tim quipped while heading for the door.

"So worth it," Jason replied. "First time you've said that word."

"Mmm. So it is." Tim looked at Jason and shrugged. "Better finish shaving. I think Steph is making pancakes today."

"Cool," Jason said as he checked the nick and nodded that it had stopped bleeding. "I'll be right down."

Tim paused just outside of the door to Jason's bathroom, considering his words carefully. Jason didn't have the same level of awareness now that he had when Tim first arrived. He turned and looked at Jason, seeing the exact same person that he had before the Joker killed him, before the Lazarus pit, before the trip around the Multiverse. It was strange and unusual and comforting and far more what he'd seen years ago when he'd stalked Batman and Robin on the rooftops of Gotham.

"How long will you hold back?" Tim asked.

Jason stopped fussing with the sink and turned to look at Tim with a stunningly serious expression that still had those eye wrinkles that apparently meant 'I love you'. "I'll hold back as long as you want me to. You're the one setting the pace, Tim. I'd never to something to upset you."

"Mmm." Tim nodded and smiled what had to be a shy smile though he couldn't see it in the mirror behind Jason. The angle was wrong for Tim to glimpse himself. He was glad of that. "Don't be late for breakfast."

"I won't," Jason laughed.

Tim left, feeling somewhat like his feet should be hovering off of the ground the way Clark sometimes did when he was overwhelmingly happy and excited about something. If he were really lucky today, Alfred would make scones too. Though Tim was certain that that much luck in one day would mean something terrible had to happen. That was just the way that life worked, after all.

+++++

"No peeking."

"Jason."

"Almost there. Don't look."

"I can't look. Your hand is over my eyes. What is this?"

"You'll see."

"Once I can see," Tim snapped.

He wasn't as annoyed as he should be. Tim had never enjoyed surprises, especially this sort of surprise where he was led around by someone else for reasons that were not made clear. The only reason that Tim was allowing Jason to lead him around the manor with a hand over his eyes was the child-like enthusiasm Jason exuded. Well, that plus the feeling of his body pressing against Tim's back.

"Okay, three more steps and we're there," Jason said. He sounded like a six-year-old on the way into a birthday party.

"This had better be worth it," Tim grumbled. He was fairly certain that Jason could see the smile flirting around Tim's lips.

"It so is," Jason said with total confidence. "Okay, open your eyes."

His hand lifted away so Tim cautiously opened his eyes. They were in Jason's room, which was as much of a pit as always. The curtains had been drawn so it wasn't as bright as Tim would have expected. None of that registered for more than about an eighth of a second. What drew Tim's eyes were three life-sized holograms standing in the middle of the room.

"Those…" Tim's throat shut up on him so that he couldn't finish the sentence, not that he'd been sure what he wanted to say.

They were holograms of what Tim's new suit would look like, displayed on images of Tim. One was virtually identical to the Red Robin suit, though without the full head cowl. His hair would be free. It looked rather odd, just as Jason had thought that it would.

The middle suit was something that was a sort of blend between Robin and Nightwing. It had a mask rather than a cowl and the utility belt that Tim was used to. Rendering the 'R' into a more stylized design had made it virtually unidentifiable, especially since the legs of the 'R' wrapped around Tim's torso. He couldn't help but think that it had a phallic effect, which was off-putting in the extreme.

The third suit on the right was absolutely unlike any suit Tim had worn before. It wasn't one that he'd designed, either. Obviously, Jason had a hand in it because it quite resembled the phoenix on his helmet. Rather than tights, that suit included pants and boots. The torso was clearly armored and the utility belt was somewhat larger, able to carry more stuff.

"That's not…"

"I know," Jason said with a little shrug that didn't hide how nervous he was about showing Tim his design for his suit. "It's not what you normally wear but hey, it's a different idea. You can always steal what you want and add it to the next draft."

"It's very… red," Tim said, lips twitching. "What am I supposed to be? A Cardinal?"

"I was actually thinking a firebird," Jason said, doing the not-really-casual shrug thing again. "It looks a bit too much like Arsenal's suit but I kind of liked all the pockets and stuff on his."

"It's very similar to yours," Tim commented just to watch Jason's face go as red as the 'firebird' suit.

Jason's cheeks promptly obliged by going so red that he looked like he had been splashed with paint. He managed not to lose the smirk or the almost-confident set to his shoulders but Tim could see that it was a close thing. There was a little tablet on the bed that Tim picked up curiously.

"You can use that to redesign anything on the suits," Jason explained after Tim's curious look. "Or you can combine all three. I've downloaded images of pretty much every suit in existence, both in this world and the others I've visited."

"Interesting," Tim murmured as he started playing with the control tablet.

It was highly intuitive, allowing the user to drag and drop, merge, shift, combine, mirror image or anything else they wanted to on the holograms. Occasionally he got error messages that made no sense. Tim paused after getting one of them and looked at Jason curiously.

"What does that mean?" Tim asked while showing Jason the error message.

"Ah… that just means that as currently configured the shield unit would conflict with some of the energy weapons," Jason said while peering over Tim's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I can fix that if you want this particular look."

Tim stared at Jason for a long moment, rolling the implications of that over in his mind. He tapped on a little sidebar that he'd been ignoring while playing with the surface appearance of the suit and shivered that a list of the various capabilities it could have came up. Every single thing that Jason could do plus several others that Tim hadn't seen before were listed.

"Can I choose by capability first?" Tim asked.

"Sure," Jason said with a calm nod. "You can choose however the fuck you want and I'll make it work."

"You'll… literally… make me whatever I want," Tim breathed while staring at the little list.

"…Yeah," Jason said, his voice and body language showing his confusion. "Said that before, didn't I?"

Tim shut his eyes and let the tablet slide down his side to rest against his thigh. The shivery feeling inside his stomach every time Jason looked at him that way intensified to such a degree that he wasn't certain he was going to be able to stay vertical. A suit. He'd thought that Jason was just making him a suit, a basic replacement for the Red Robin suit, but apparently he'd been quite wrong about that. Jason would make him a suit that was beyond what anyone else on this planet or any other had. He'd bend the rules of physics and contort science to give Tim whatever he wanted.

"Hey."

Jason's voice had that quiet, breathy sound that he only used when he was afraid of frightening Tim off. Tim shook his head no, unwilling to open his eyes until he'd gotten a handle on the emotions trying to knock him off balance. The heat of Jason's hand against his cheek made Tim whimper very quietly. This couldn't be something that he could have. Life didn't work this way for Tim.

"Shh."

Jason's lips brushed delicately over Tim's eyelids, kissing away tears that Tim would never admit had been hovering. Tim could smell the roast beef sandwich that Jason had eaten for lunch. He leaned into Jason's chest until he could open his eyes again.

"Sorry." Tim's voice came out as a husky whisper. It was the best he could manage.

"Don't be. It's fine."

"Not… used to this," Tim admitted. He opened his eyes and looked into Jason's eyes. The love there nearly made him retreat again.

"Heh, yeah," Jason chuckled with the most fond expression Tim had ever seen in his life. "I got that. 's okay. I'm not either. We'll work it out. We've got time."

+++++

"Explain to me why we're on this particular world," Tim said as they walked down a street that would make Gotham's Narrows back home look like clean-swept middle-America.

"Well, you asked about whore Tim," Jason said. "This is his world. It's easier to come here than to explain. Besides, I don't know what happened to him after I left. I never came back."

His eyes were scanning the street for danger and he had his most dominant and impressive body language on, the one that made him look like he was eight inches taller, four inches wider and so pissed off that he'd kill anyone that looked at them. Tim could hardly blame Jason for it. He'd put on his 'I kill assassins for fun' walk as soon as they arrived. Every single person on the street looked the other way or ran as they approached.

"Is there a Bat?" Tim murmured after they passed an alley where someone appeared to have been beaten to death and left to rot. Rats clustered around the body and chittered threateningly at them as they passed.

"No," Jason sighed. "Bruce died at the opera house. Gotham's been pretty much forgotten by the rest of the world. Not quite No-Man's Land but it's considered the worst city in the country and everyone honest avoids it like the fucking plague."

"Hmm."

Tim stopped as they crossed the street and reached a burnt out building that looked like it had been used as a drug hangout. He cocked his head and gestured for Jason to follow him. Neither of them had helmets or masks but that was all right. Jason had his shield on and he'd constructed a basic one for Tim to wear as well. They were relatively safe, within the technical limits of the shield technology. A gas or biological attack would get through as if the shield wasn't there and in this Gotham it appeared to be quite possible that they could be hit by gas. They'd just have to be careful.

"What?"

"This looks… familiar," Tim said. He pointed at the throwing star embedded in the wall.

"The fuck?" Jason murmured. "That looks like one of Bruce's, just… shaped different. More like a bird than a bat. Sort of."

Tim ran a finger of the edge of the not-Batarang, nodding that it was sharp enough to penetrate flesh easily. He worked it free from the wall and considered the shape. It looked like a cross between a bird and the letter 'N', which told Tim everything he needed to know about who had created and thrown it. Jason shared a look with Tim and then they were off, tracking down what had happened in this world.

It was quite fascinating watching Jason do his version of detective work. There was a different methodology about it. Rather than focusing on finding crimes and their perpetrators, he focused first on finding news reports and then tracked backwards from that to find out what their alternates must have done. Tim put a hand on Jason's shoulder when he blew out a startled breath a half hour later. The library should have been a safe haven but the other patrons were putting Tim on edge. Jason didn't seem to notice them.

"Right after I left," Jason murmured. "They hooked up right after I left and not a week after that a new hero appeared."

"You?" Tim asked.

"Yeah," Jason said. "Calls himself the Nightbird. Apparently scares the living fuck out of everyone on both sides of the law. Locals think of him as Gotham's hero, as dark as this damned city is. Rest of the world thinks he's nothing more than a serial killer."

"Sounds familiar," Tim murmured while watching a cop coming closer. "Trouble."

"See it," Jason said. He quickly wiped the cache and returned the computer to its home screen. "Let's go. I'm done."

The cop followed them downstairs and outside. There were a couple of cars close to the library that were obviously waiting for orders. Tim and Jason exchanged looks again. He rather wished that he hadn't asked if Jason knew what had happened to his alternate self. Apparently they were stirring up trouble that they shouldn't have.

They made it one block before the cops shouted behind them. Jason held out a hand to Tim, smirking. Tim took it with a silent laugh of amusement. There was no way that they could be caught, much less held. Jason triggered his belt and they were suddenly blocks away on a rooftop, looking back at the startled and confused cops.

"That was way too easy," Jason laughed. "Takes all the fun out of it."

"I wonder what inspired them to do it," Tim said, staring out over the city. "Our other selves, I mean."

"Don't know but we can always ask," Jason said.

He didn't look as confident as he sounded. If anything, he looked somewhat hesitant to confront his other self and the boy that he'd spent one night with. Tim hesitated to ask as he knew that Jason would do whatever Tim wanted, but he was starting to understand how Jason's curiosity had gotten the better of him so many times during his trip home.

"I am… curious… about them," Tim admitted once he couldn't find a better word for it.

Jason snickered. "Fine. Hold on and we'll get closer to them. I didn't bother homing in on them before. That Jay's a bit of a hard-ass. I didn't want to set him off."

"Let's go."

This time they ended up outside of a nondescript warehouse just outside of the Narrows. Tim knew as soon as he saw it that it had to be their alter ego's home base. The windows were intact while none of the other buildings in the area were. It wasn't clean, but it had a carefully maintained look that showed it was cared for. They only went two steps before several men appeared, pointing guns at the two of them.

"The fuck?" one of the men breathed. He stared at Jason and then at Tim with wide eyes.

"Just looking to talk to some relatives," Jason said with his hands up and well away from his gun. "They in?"

"They don't got no relatives, man," the thug said with one-sixteenth the certainty he should have had. "The fuck are you two?"

"Just open the fucking door," Jason growled at him. "Tell 'em JP and Al are here, not that that'll mean a hell of a lot to anyone other than his boy."

Tim stayed right at Jason's side once they were allowed inside the warehouse. It was dark, with most of the lights turned off. He smiled at the obvious attempt to keep them from seeing too much. The other Jason's men twitched when he smiled. Just to see what they would do, Tim raised an eyebrow at them and squared his shoulders as if he were facing Bruce or Ra's al Ghul. They went so pale that Tim was surprised that they didn't pee their pants.

"Quit scaring the help," Jason murmured to Tim.

"It is you."

Tim started at hearing his voice pitched in that sexy register. His jaw dropped open as his alternate ego slinked out of the shadows to study Jason. He was everything that Tim wasn't, sexy and confident about it. Seeing himself dressed in skin-tight leather pants and a black mesh T-shirt that showed nipple rings adorned with little red gems that couldn't actually be rubies was almost literally mind-bending. The other Tim's hair swept over his shoulders and halfway down to the nipple rings.

"Hey."

"Oh wow, you found his older brother? Or is he a cousin?" the other Tim asked, his eyes locked on Tim. "I can see the resemblance. No wonder."

"Sort of," Jason said. His face was tight and sad when he turned to look at Tim but the wrinkles appeared around his eyes so Tim didn't stiffen as much as he normally would have. "It's a long story. The hell you guys up to here?"

"What business is it of yours?" a much rougher Jason's voice growled from the shadows. "The fuck are you doing here, anyway JP?"

"He wanted to know what happened to your boy," Jason said with a casual shrug of his shoulders at Tim. "That's why we're here."

The other Jason had a nasty scar on his face that extended from his left temple down to the corner of his mouth. He took in the way Tim glared at him, their highly combat ready stances and nodded slowly. Instead of attacking them he moved to pull his Tim into his arms, making whore Tim laugh and practically melt back against him.

"Relative?" the other Jason asked.

"Distant cousin," Tim replied. "It's a long story. Nightbird?"

Everyone stiffened at that, the thugs' guns coming up to point at the two of them. Jason laughed and pulled out his helmet. He triggered it to open up from its storage state and casually slipped it onto his head.

"Phoenix," Jason said, a grin hidden behind his mask but clear in the tone of his voice and the way he put his hands on his hips.

"You?" the other Jason asked Tim.

"I was Red Robin but I'm working on a new identity currently," Tim said. "Things… happened and I decided a new one was needed. As I said, it's a long story."

"Robin, huh?" whore Tim said with a huge grin that somehow managed to look unconsciously seductive. "That might be entertaining."

"No fucking way are you going out there and fighting," scar Jason snarled.

Whore Tim raised one eyebrow at scar Jason and smirked. The way he looked at that Jason made Tim wonder just exactly who planned their operations and how they gathered information. From what he could see, Tim was the brain of the operation, not Jason. Jason chuckled, shaking his head at the two of them.

"Look, doesn't make any difference to us," Jason said while taking his helmet back off again. "Al just wanted to be sure your boy was safe and taken care of."

"I still can't believe you left without making sure," Tim complained in what he hoped was the right manner to make everyone think it was a long-standing argument.

"I can't take care of everyone," Jason complained in a matching tone of voice. "You know that."

"Mmm."

Tim put as much skepticism into the little noise as he possible could. He was rewarded by laugh from scar Jason that sounded honestly amused. From the way his thugs reacted, laughter wasn't something that the other Jason often indulged in.

"Sounds familiar," scar Jason murmured.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," whore Tim said though the faint blush on his cheeks made his breezy words a lie.

He stepped away from his Jason and distinctly _slinked_ over to Tim's Jason. Tim couldn't help but stiffen as his drop-dead sexy alter ego approached Jason. It felt like a threat, especially since this Tim had given Jason something that Tim was unwilling to so far. Whore Tim was quite clearly aware of Tim's discomfort though he did nothing to alleviate it. He stopped just inside of arm's reach of Jason without touching. Scar Jason looked as tense as Tim felt about the two of them being so close together.

"That night…" whore Tim's voice seemed to shut off before he could say anything else. His expression said things about tenderness and gratitude that made Tim blush.

"Yeah, it was," Jason said with such a sad smile that Tim's heart thumped against his chest. "Helped. Gave me the strength to go on, you know?"

Whore Tim laughed a silent laugh that looked just like Tim's laugh. The sexy mannerisms dropped for a moment and Tim could see a hurt young man who'd run away from everything in his life. Naked emotion shown in his eyes for a moment before his masks slid back into place and he tossed his hair over his shoulder.

"Glad I could help you out," whore Tim said. "You need anything else besides seeing me?"

"Nah," Jason chuckled. "Mostly here because Al wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Which you obviously are, so we'll be going," Tim said in far too stiff and snippy a tone of voice for his discomfort with the conversation to stay hidden.

Whore Tim laughed out loud, grinning at Tim and winking provocatively. He returned to scar Jason who grabbed him and hugged him tight to his hip in such a blatantly possessive move that Tim felt better about his urge to lay claim to Jason.

"Thanks for visiting, Phoenix, Robin," whore Tim said with a smirk that promised so much and so little at the same time.

"Good luck on the training," Tim said with a smirk of his own.

Whore Tim grinned so wickedly that it was like looking into a mirror when Tim was plotting things. Scar Jason groaned and started cursing at them both. Jason laughed and shook his head. They left the way they came and then walked until they were out of sight. Transferring back home deposited them in the Batcave. It was empty and dark, silent other than the rustling of the bats overhead.

"Better?" Jason asked.

Tim stalled while removing the gauntlet that had kept him from altering reality while they were there. He did feel better, oddly enough. It was strange to see another version of himself, especially with another version of Jason, but it was also comforting.

"I think so," Tim said while staring at the smaller gauntlet in his hands. "I think I understand why you spent so much time coming home now. It's almost impossible to resist understanding the differences, isn't it?"

"Fuck yes," Jason groaned. "I had to ration myself after a while. So many 'verses without checking things out before I got to check one. Sucked but otherwise I'd have been ninety before I made it home."

Neither of them mentioned that if he'd delayed too much longer there wouldn't have been a home to return to. They entered the elevator, heading back up to the manor. Tim leaned his head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling as he pondered what they'd seen. Jason's expression was a mixture of stoic reserve and not-quite-hidden worry in the corner of Tim's eye.

"It wasn't that he looks like you, you know," Jason said when they reached the main floor. Neither of them opened the elevator door.

"Hmm?"

"He's another version of you, yeah," Jason explained in a husky, pained voice that Tim had only heard when he talked about soldier Tim. "But that wasn't why we… well, why we fucked."

"Soldier Tim."

"Yeah." Jason swallowed hard as if just getting that one word out was a miracle. He stared into space for a long moment, the fingers of his right hand twitching as if they were wrapped around a gun. "I… The hardest thing I've ever done in my life, including dying, was pulling the trigger on soldier Tim. It was tearing me apart and then I saw him and they were fucking identical. I literally couldn't walk by. Rainy night, fucking freezing and he was standing on the street corner in this tight white T-shirt and hot pants that left nothing to the imagination. Had to do something, so I fed him and got him a room and planned on leaving him a ton of money to go on. It just… happened."

"Jason," Tim said as he put a hand on Jason's arm to calm the rising agitation. "I get it. You take your comfort where you can find it when things are bad. It's okay. I got it before. I just wanted to make sure that he was okay."

Jason nodded and the terrible tension that had been claiming him subsided, leaving him tired and older looking. Tim let his fingers slide down to Jason's hand. They both smiled when Jason wrapped his hand around Tim's fingers.

"No, what's getting me," Tim said after a moment of warm silence, "is that I could have very easily been that Tim."

"What?" Jason face was so startled that Tim shrugged and tried to smirk. It probably was more of a grimace.

"There were a couple times in my life where I thought about running away," Tim admitted. "It was before I became Robin, but I did consider it. If there had been no Batman and Robin when my mom died, or when my dad lost his money, I probably would have. There were so many times when Batman and Robin were my anchor, what gave the strength to make it through the day. I can see how he made that choice because I very nearly made that choice myself. If things had been different and I had been just a little more 'I'll show them' in that early teen way, I would have done it."

Jason yanked Tim into his arms, crushing him in a hug that ought to have been stifling but actually felt far too comforting. Tim sighed, clinging to Jason just as he was clung to. It wasn't a confession he would have ever made to Bruce or Dick, but having seen his alternate Tim had to say it to Jason. Jason understood. He might not want to but he did understand far too well.

"Fuck," Jason muttered after a long, long couple of minutes of hugs.

"Hey."

Jason loosened his grip enough that Tim could see his face. He smiled and caught Jason's face, pulling him down for a kiss that made his stomach do flips. Lately everything about Jason made his stomach do flips but Tim found that he didn't mind as much as he used to.

"Thank you," Tim whispered once he let Jason's lips go. "I appreciate your letting me see him, especially given how painful it was for you."

"You're welcome," Jason murmured with a grin that was just this side of shy. It looked adorable on Jason's face, not that Tim would ever say that out loud. He wanted to see that look again and Jason was stubborn enough not to show that expression again if he knew it was cute. "Though you do know my alternate is probably cursing us out. Tim's gonna insist on being a superhero too, now that he's seen you."

"I know," Tim said with a grin that felt incredibly good. "That Jason needs someone to guard his back anyway. Just like you."

Jason laughed and hugged Tim again, rocking them from side to side with the force of the hug. Tim laughed silently, wondering if Dick knew that Jason was actually a hugger. They both started and stepped apart when the elevator door opened from the outside. Damian put on his flattest glare when he saw them.

"If you have been engaging in fornication in the elevator I am telling Alfred," Damian snapped.

"Ooo, big guns there," Jason laughed. "Nope, no fornication, Little D. Just a timeout."

Damian huffed and waited impatiently for them to leave the elevator. Tim rolled his eyes once the door was shut. Restoring the world to what it should have been hadn't improved Damian's personality. He blinked and looked at Jason curiously.

"Is there a world where Damian is actually a nice person?" Tim asked.

"Heck yeah," Jason laughed. "That's the mirror universe one where you have a goatee!"

"Forget I asked," Tim shuddered. "I so do not want to go there!"

+++++

"No, that… looks like that's it," Tim said. He hesitated as he checked the monitors for any signs of trouble in Gotham. Manning the computers wasn't what he wanted to be doing but until he had a suit of his own he wasn't going to go out there for anything less that a world-beating emergency. Lately it had all been minor crimes, not disasters, thank goodness. Tim was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Thank fucking God," Jason grumbled.

He transferred back to the cave. Tim couldn't stop a chuckle. Jason had been experimenting with special effects for his arrival. He'd gone from actual flames (that made Alfred actually snap at him when he scorched the floor in the kitchen) to holographic ones that made him seem like a demon emerging from hell, to shimmers of light and then to the latest effect: sounds that were almost like trumpets and a shower of sparkles.

"What?" Jason's hair was sweaty when he pulled off his helmet. His expression was a mixture of exhaustion and curiosity.

"Did Dick suggest that one?" Tim asked. He didn't bother hiding the twitching of his lips.

"Yeah."

Jason's expression slipped into outright disgust as Tim laughed. He shook his head and stomped off to the showers to get cleaned up. Tim made sure that the others were on their way back before following Jason. He was naked and standing in the closest shower stall with his face turned up into the spray. The gauntlet was still around his forearm. It was so much a part of him after his trip home that Tim suspected that Jason forgot it was there most of the time.

"Bad night?" Tim asked as he traced the blooming bruises peppering Jason's body.

"Eh, not too bad," Jason said with a casual shrug that made him wince. "Trying to get back into actual hand to hand combat instead of relying on my gear so…"

He shrugged again, obviously unconcerned about his injuries. None of them looked serious so Tim contented himself with watching Jason shower. Tim's stomach filled with butterflies as Jason smiled that almost-shy smile into the water's spray. Somehow this seemed more intimate than sex. Jason was letting Tim see him at what was literally his most vulnerable, apparently without any concern.

"Cold?" Jason asked when Tim shivered.

"No, I'm fine," replied Tim.

Jason looked sideways at him while washing his hair and smirked at how tight Tim's pants were. He opened his mouth to say something but the Batmobile roared into the cave, followed by Dick's bike. Tim stepped away and went to get a towel for Jason, even though he already had one on the bench next to his uniform.

"How'd it look?" Dick asked as he bounced back into the shower area.

"Idiotic," Tim said. He pushed the towel into Dick's hands. "It reminded me of that old sequin covered glittery suit of yours, honestly."

"I loved that suit," Dick protested.

"Tell me it wasn't that bad." Jason's groan echoed out from the showers.

Damian and Bruce grunted in identical tones of complete disgust, which set off Jason swearing at Dick. Dick just laughed. Rather than stay and watch the others watching him watch Jason naked, Tim headed back upstairs to his room. It was so odd. Jason had fit back into the family as if he'd never been gone, unlike his double who had practically done everything in his power to destroy the family. But the place that Jason had reclaimed wasn't the one that he'd left behind.

He wasn't the lost son, the angry one, anymore. He had no interest in working directly with Bruce or competing with Dick. Damian didn't appear to be a threat at all to Jason's sense of identity. It was as though Jason had moved on, claimed his own identity, and created his own life. While Tim was delighted by that, he still found it very disorienting to realize that he was the heart of the life Jason was creating among them.

Tim moved around his room, straightening things that didn't need to be straightened. After a moment he sighed and went across the hall to Jason's room. He didn't think about what Jason would say as he started picking up Jason's scattered clothes to put them away or to drop them into the hamper. Cleaning helped him straighten out his mind. It was as though a neat and orderly world allowed his mind to be equally neat and orderly.

"You don't have to do that," Jason said from the doorway a few minutes later.

"I know." Tim shrugged. "Not ready to sleep yet and my room is clean."

Jason chuckled and sauntered over to flop on his bed. He watched Tim clean up the clothes, sort out the scattered circuitry designs and set Jason's room to rights. Half an hour later the room was almost as clean as if Alfred had been in and Tim was able to stop. He stood in the center of Jason's room, his mind a pleasant blank at last.

"Hey." Jason's voice was a soft, deep burr in the dimness of the room. Tim hadn't bothered to turn on anything other than the bedside lamp. Jason hadn't bothered either.

"Hmm?"

"Sleep?"

"Mmm, good idea," Tim sighed.

Tim was and wasn't surprised when Jason reached out and caught his hand. He allowed Jason to pull him down onto the bed. Jason's chest was bare. All he was wearing were a pair of old gray sweatpants that were a touch too short and a hair too tight for him. When Tim ran his fingers over a bruise on Jason's ribcage, Jason shuddered slightly. He looked three quarters asleep but he still smiled up at Tim as if he'd stay awake for Tim for however long Tim wanted.

"Good night," Tim whispered.

He bent over and brushed his lips over Jason's in a tentative goodnight kiss. Jason rumbled deep in his chest and caught Tim's lip in his teeth, gently tugging him back down for a longer, deeper kiss. Tim found himself moving fully onto the bed with his arms wrapped around Jason's neck and their legs tangled together.

"Sleep?" Tim whispered once they let each other's mouths go.

"Sleep is good," Jason agreed. His fingers ran through Tim's hair in little petting motions that made Tim want to curl up and purr like a cat on Jason's chest.

"I should go," Tim said as he pulled the blankets up over the two of them instead.

"If you want to," was all Jason said.

He didn't wrap his arms around Tim until Tim tugged Jason's wrist around his waist. Jason held Tim as if he was the most precious thing in the universe. The butterflies were back but Tim was too tired to respond to them. Instead he set his head on Jason's shoulder and allowed sleep to capture him. Maybe this way neither of them would have bad dreams of clowns or spiders or whatever else haunted their nighttime minds.

"Good night." Jason's whisper barely penetrated Tim's mind. The kiss to his forehead, on the other hand, warmed him through and made the butterflies fly away.

+++++

Jason woke to Tim draped over his chest. The weight of Tim's head on his shoulder had put his arm to sleep but Jason couldn't bring himself to shift position. He'd never seen this tender, sweet expression on Tim's face before. He looked young and just a little cranky, as if morning had come entirely too soon for his tastes and he wanted several more hours of sleep. Given the dark marks under his eyes he probably could use more sleep, Jason thought.

He very gently moved one of the longer strands of hair out of Tim's eyes. If his heart got any fuller Jason was sure that it would burst straight out of his chest. After so many years of looking for something to still the anger inside of him, to give him a sense of self separate from Bruce and his fucking mission, he'd ended up exactly where he'd begun. Jason found that he couldn't resent it. He was so fucking grateful to be in the Manor with Bruce and Dick and Alfred and everyone that he literally could barely remember why he'd been so determined to set himself apart.

This was home.

His home, the home he'd been given out of the blue as a kid, hated and resented when he was a teen, tried to destroy after the pit drove him out of his mind and then fled out into the Multiverse when he realized that there was no escaping the black hole that was his family. Not that he really thought this was a black hole, not anymore.

Not with Tim at his side, shyly working his way from enemy to something so much more than ally.

"You're thinking so hard I can hear it," Tim murmured.

"Sorry," Jason chuckled. He hadn't felt Tim move an inch. His breathing hadn't even changed as he woke up. "Ready to move? My arm's numb."

"Mmm, sorry."

Tim shifted and let Jason pull his arm free. They lay together in Jason's bed, neither one of them touching or saying anything until after Jason's fingers had stopped tingling. Jason kept expecting Tim to make an excuse and get out of bed but he didn't. Instead he watched Jason's face as if he was peeling back the layers of Jason's soul with his eyes.

"You okay?" Jason asked.

"Mmm-hmm." Tim nodded, still studying Jason. His cheeks got faintly red as Jason studied him right back. "Just thinking."

"What about?"

Tim smiled and shifted position so that he was straddling Jason's hip. He cautiously took Jason's wrists and pushed them over his head, holding Jason down so that he could kiss Jason. It was tentative at the same time that it was incredibly hot. Jason's cock reacted, no matter how he ordered the damn thing to stop it and go down. Fortunately Tim's cock was getting hard too. They rocked together, Jason letting Tim control every aspect of what they did.

"That," Tim whispered.

"That's a good thing to think about," Jason said. His voice came out hoarse and so horny that he was surprised the words were coherent.

"What were you thinking about?" Tim asked as he laughed his breathless, silent little laugh.

"It had best not be whatever fornication the two of you engaged in last night," Damian said from the doorway. He looked disgusted to see Tim there. "I would prefer not to think of such things, though I must say that I am quite surprised to find that Jason is the bottom."

Tim whirled and glared at Damian with so much ferocity that Jason grabbed him around the waist to keep him from leaping out of the bed to take Damian down. Damian moved up on his toes, his hands going to defensive positions. Jason huffed and shifted so that Tim was flopped onto the bed on his back.

"Little D, if you don't get out of here I'll make you watch the ass baby clip again," Jason said as fiercely as he could with Tim using several pressure points to try and get free.

Damian's face went beet red. He was gone before Tim could move to hit Jason's groin or anything else too sensitive. Tim growled, glaring at the door as it slowly swung shut. Jason just snorted, sitting up in bed and sighing that Damian had ruined the mood that thoroughly. Yet another of his talents, Jason assumed.

"That…!" Tim was all but spitting with rage. His cheeks were so red that Jason had to wonder if it was the interruption and being observed doing sexy things or the assumption that Jason bottomed. "I swear that brat is going to force me to deal with him permanently. I can't believe him! What's wrong with him?"

"Jealous," Jason said so calmly that Tim stared at him. "Seriously, he's so jealous that he's about to explode, Tim. You do realize he's never had anyone love him without hesitation or reserve in his life, don't you?"

Tim's eyes went to slits as he glared at Jason. "Stop trying to make me feel sympathy for him. I don't want to. He's odious and impossible and…"

Jason leaned in and kissed Tim to shut him up. Tim bristled and tried to pull free but Jason wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, exerting the gentlest pressure possible to keep him there. It only took that tiny pressure to keep Tim in the kiss, however it took a good bit longer for Tim to relax into the kiss by tiny increments. What felt like several decades later Tim groaned and straddled Jason's lap to kiss him so deeply that Jason thought he might come just from the taste of him.

"I hate him," Tim whispered against Jason's lips.

"Shows."

"He took my suit, my place," Tim hissed. "It was mine and he stole it from me."

"Sucks," Jason agreed.

"It's not fair!"

"Nope, definitely not," Jason nodded, gently gnawing on Tim's bottom lip and making him shiver.

They kissed again, Jason slowly sliding back onto his pillows with Tim on his chest. There was a spot on Tim's back that made him shudder every time Jason ran his fingers over it. The longer they kissed, the more Jason's cock ached but Tim never made a move to reach between them. His cock had to ache as much as Jason's but he ignored it so Jason did too.

"He's not leaving, is he?" Tim finally sighed.

"No, doesn't look like it," Jason said while running his fingers through Tim's hair.

"Fuck."

"That's my line," Jason laughed. Tim snorted a laugh, nuzzling Jason's neck. "Don't have to stay, you know."

"Leaving doesn't do a lot of good," Tim admitted with a sad sigh. "I tried that already."

Jason laughed and held up the gauntlet. Tim's eyes went wide at the implicit suggestion. Rather than say no outright he seemed to be considering it seriously. His cheeks went red when Jason carressed his cheek.

"There's no need to go for long periods, you know," Jason said. "We can take short trips. I wanted to talk to the Chief and his Tim about your suit. You know Temperance and Jay would love to have us visit. Their input would be great too. There's this diner I know of that's terrific. We can go have breakfast there and then see the world where Poison Ivy won. Have gyros for lunch. Visit the steampunk 'verse, buy cool shit with ridiculous names."

Tim laughed, setting his forehead on Jason's chest. "And be home in time for dinner."

"Yeah," Jason said with that feeling of being near to exploding with joy again. "And be home in time for dinner."

Tim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The tension that had been there since Damian's interruption drained away. He laughed. When he raised his head to meet Jason's eyes there was laughter and that same expression of awed amazement that anyone would ever care for him so much. Jason ran a thumb over his cheekbone and smiled. Tim's smile matched Jason's.

"Let's."

+++++

"You're going on a date?" Dick's voice was as incredulous as his expression as he stared at the two of them.

"Sure," Jason said confidently. "Why not? It's Saturday. Why not go out and have some fun?"

Steph grinned from her place at the stove. She'd taken to making pancakes every Saturday since he got back, if she wasn't busy doing something else. Alfred looked as though he had no opinion one way or the other about their going out. Damian, predictably, looked like he was going to be ill at the thought of the two of them going off by themselves together. Bruce had a hand on his shoulder to keep him from going off. Dick just looked confused.

"Um, why are you going to _another world_ for your date?" Dick asked. He shook his head just a little bit as if he wanted to clear his head.

"You really think it's possible to have a good date in Gotham?" Jason drawled.

Everyone other than Damian at least smirked but Steph broke up laughing. She gave Tim a look that made him nod and start snickering. Jason looked at Tim curiously but he just shrugged. He'd have to ask about it later but for now at least they seemed to have accepted the idea of the two of them going off by themselves. Well, everyone other than Damian who looked like he'd eaten a lemon he was so sour about the idea. There was nothing that he could do about it so Jason ignored it. Damian was Bruce's problem. Tim was Jason's, not that Tim was a problem really.

"We'll be back for dinner," Tim said in his most confident voice though Jason could tell from the way he held his shoulders that he wasn't half as confident as he was trying to seem.

"Did you wish to have breakfast before you go, Master Tim, Master Jason?" Alfred asked.

"Nah, we're going to have breakfast at one of my favorite diners," Jason said. "Thanks anyway."

"Very good, sirs." Alfred graced them both with one of his rare smiles of approval. It shut down a huge portion of Damian's grumpiness and transmuted it into pure pout. "Do enjoy your adventure."

"Thanks Alfred," Jason said.

Jason pulled Tim out of the kitchen and towards the entryway before Damian could start pouting verbally. He really didn't want to listen to that and he already knew that it would enrage Tim, which he definitely didn't need. Tim seemed as eager to leave as Jason was because he hurried faster than Jason did.

"So?" Tim asked once they got there. "Now what?"

"Well, now we go," Jason said and offered his hand to Tim. "It's in the WWII 'verse, which is why I had you wear nicer clothes. We can't really touch or kiss but the food is terrific. It's kind of cool there. Everyone assumes I'm a former soldier and I get lots of respect instead of fear or suspicion. Just about blew my mind when I first got there. Ended up spending several days there just resting."

Tim rested his hand in Jason's, his lips twitching with amusement at the thought. Jason triggered his belt and they appeared in his favorite alley behind the bank. Tim's smile turned into a frown as Jason stole a twenty from the bank. Jason shrugged and let Tim check the bill out. The way his eyes went wide at the differences between this world's money and their world's made Jason grin.

"I guess I just assumed that the money would be similar," Tim murmured as he passed it back to Jason who tucked it into his wallet.

"Nope, the money's all different enough that you can't use money from one 'verse in another," Jason explained.

He led Tim out of the alley and they slowly strolled down the street. It took a minute for Tim's wariness to dissolve into curiosity but once it did Tim asked dozens of quiet questions that Jason answered with a grin. He got a bunches of polite nods from men and flirtatious looks from the passing women, none of which did a thing for him. Tim looked like he was paying attention to the looks but his shoulders didn't go up until the hit the diner and Sally lit up like a search light when he came in.

"Sarge!" Sally called. She bustled over and gave him a hug. "Surprised to see you back in town."

"I was visiting and thought I'd stop for my favorite breakfast," Jason said, letting her go immediately. "Got room for two more?"

"Always got room for our boys," Sally said. She grinned at Tim and gave him a quick hug that made him blush violently. "Couple of tables still open in the back, Sarge. Make yourself at home. Want your normal coffee?"

"You bet," Jason said. "Make it two."

"With some cream please," Tim said.

"You got it," Sally said.

She headed back to the kitchen and Jason led Tim to the two remaining tables in the diner. It was busier than he'd seen in a while, with quite a few soldiers having breakfast. Jason got a lot of nods and casual salutes, all of which he returned calmly. Tim breathed a sigh of relief once they settled into their table.

"Wow," Tim murmured while fidgeting with his silverware.

"Yeah, no kidding," Jason said. "Way busier than I've seen before. They must be shipping out soon or something. You okay?"

"I'm fine," Tim declared in that tone that said he would be fine from sheer determination, whether he actually was or not.

Sally showed up with their coffee and two platters of food that made Tim's eyes go wide. Jason laughed that she'd assumed she knew what they wanted but given how busy they were this morning he could completely understand it. Tim laughed his silent laugh at how much food there was on his plate.

"You boys enjoy and let me know if you need more coffee," Sally said. She slid a little pitcher of real cream to Tim for his coffee. "We're kind of slammed this morning."

"Do what you gotta, sweetheart," Jason said. "This looks great to me. Right, Tim?"

"Yes, just… more than I was expecting," Tim said. His eyes twinkled with amusement. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sally declared before bustling off to answer shouts from the other side of the room for more coffee.

As they ate, the last table was filled with a family of tweens and teens, the girls in trim little skirts and the twin boys in kid-sized bomber jackets that resembled Jason's jacket. Tim smiled through the meal, at least until the door opened and Bruce Wayne came in wearing an army General's uniform.

The whole diner stilled and soldiers dropped their forks and knives to bolt to their feet to stand at attention. Sally's normal cheerful greeting turned into something completely flustered, especially because there wasn't a single open table in the place. Bruce scanned the diner and locked on to Tim and Jason sitting in the back. Neither of them had stood and Tim's tense posture probably stuck out like a sore thumb, especially when contrasted to Jason's calm stare.

"He's coming over here," Tim whispered.

"You're a scientist and you can't talk about your project," Jason murmured. "And I'm ex-special forces and assigned as your bodyguard."

"You make these things up way too easily," Tim complained just before Bruce arrived.

"May I join you?" Bruce asked while pulling out a chair and sitting down. Sally appeared with coffee and a platter of food that had Bruce's lips twitching with amusement. It was piled even higher than Jason and Tim's had been.

"Sure thing, General," Jason said. "Jason Todd, Tim Drake."

"General Bruce Wayne," Bruce said. He stole the cream, dosed his coffee until it was coffee flavored cream and then raised an eyebrow at Tim's stiff shoulders. "Haven't seen you in town before."

"We're here for the morning," Jason said while working on polishing off his ham. "Gonna be onwards to our destination after breakfast."

Tim kept his eyes on his plate, not responding to either of them. Jason chuckled when Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. He waited until Sally had reappeared and refilled his coffee before shrugging and leaning a little closer to Bruce as if he didn't want anyone to overhear.

"Bodyguard," Jason murmured. He nearly grinned at the way Bruce's eyes narrowed. "Have to kill you if I told you what he's up to but it's important."

"Ah." From the expression on Bruce's face he was running through all the military testing and weapons development programs to figure out which one Tim might be attached to.

Bruce said nothing else as they ate. Tim's shoulders eventually relaxed as no further questions were flung their way. The soldiers in the diner kept a discrete eye on their table and got twitchier as the silence continued. Tim and Jason finished long before Bruce did, which was no surprise given they'd started well before him too.

"I got the check," Jason declared once he and Tim were done.

"Todd," Bruce growled in exactly the pissed off and about to strike Batman voice that made criminals run away screaming.

"Nope, not listening," Jason said with his best shit-eating grin. He ignored Tim's groan and the way his chin dropped down to his chest in dismay. "Least I can do, General. 'Sides, I got a stipend for our meals."

Bruce laughed at that while shaking his head at Jason. He waved a hand at Jason, graciously giving him permission to steal the bill. Jason stood, as did Tim. When Bruce stood to shake their hands, the soldiers surrounding them scrambled to their feet too.

"Have a good trip," Bruce said to Jason. His grip was firm to the point of discomfort.

"Thank you, sir," Jason said.

"Thank you for your work," Bruce said quietly when he shook Tim's hand.

"Ah, thank you, sir," Tim murmured. His cheeks went bright red as Bruce chuckled and patted his hand before releasing it.

Sally had eyes as big as saucers by the time Jason passed her the twenty for their breakfasts. She made to give him change and then giggled when he closed her hand around the money. Tim looked a little shaken as he stood next to Jason. Of course, most everyone in the diner looked off kilter.

"Keep it, darling," Jason said. "Don't make the General pay for his food. I got it."

"Sarge, you are one of a kind," Sally laughed much more like herself.

"Have a good day," Jason called as he held the door for Tim.

He laughed when pretty much the entire diner called back good wishes to them. Tim's eyes were still huge when they made it back to the alleyway. Jason took his hand, gently squeezing his fingertips.

"What happens when he tries to track down Tim Drake?" Tim asked.

"I already met your other version in this 'verse," Jason said with a grin. "He's a soldier. Bruce'll have a hard time searching, you know. There are no computers here and for all I know this 'verse's Tim is a scientist. Doesn't really matter. He's got better things to worry about than a random scientist and bodyguard that he met at breakfast one day."

"And you really think that Bruce would let it go that easily?" Tim asked.

He was smiling so Jason just grinned and shrugged. Tim's laugh this time was the audible but quiet one that sounded like someone in another room was highly amused. He caught Jason's neck and pulled him down into a kiss that made Jason groan happily.

"Where to now?" Tim asked. His lips were moist and kiss swollen once he let Jason go. "I think I need something to work that breakfast off."

"Poison Ivy's world coming right up," Jason said cheerfully.

+++++

"This is seriously creepy," whispered Tim as they cautiously eased their way through the tall grass that had grown up in what used to be the middle of Gotham's main street.

"No kidding," Jason said.

The buildings around them were vine covered ruins, like something that you would expect to see in a jungle or an Indiana Jones movie. Tim could pick out bits of signs behind the vegetation. That building had been a deli. The one next to it was a bank. Across the street was the biggest department store in Gotham, transformed into a shimmering mass of greenery and bright white flowers that resembled morning glories.

"Is she still here?" Tim asked.

"Yeah," Jason said far too calmly. "She's turned into this huge tree in the center of the park. We're here too. Every human being was transformed into living plants like Ivy. I'm a bad-tempered green motherfucker with thorns and these obnoxiously bright blue flowers. You're sleek and black with leaves that I _think_ are like poison ivy leaves, you know, the real poison ivy, not Pamela Isley. Didn't let him get close enough to be sure when I saw him."

"So you're prickly and I'm dangerous?" Tim asked, amused at Jason's descriptions of their other selves.

Jason grinned over his shoulder and nodded. They reached the end of the road and took a left, heading down towards the bay. The silence around them was unnerving. There were birds singing and animals rustling through the shrubbery but no other living things that he could see. At least not at first. As they kept going, Tim realized that the little nods Jason was making weren't random. He wasn't counting buildings in his head or tracking something.

He was nodding to the silent people surrounding them.

The first tree that moved made Tim start so badly that Jason turned and caught his arm. The tree cocked its 'head', a great plume of leaves with what looked like apples, at him. Grave green eyes blinked at him and then he, she, it, whatever turned and slowly walked away down a former alley.

After that he started noticing all the people surrounding them. They stood silent and watchful as Jason led him through this altered Gotham. Their eyes were every shade, from normal human browns and blues to thoroughly inhuman gold and pink and violet. Some were nearly human looking. Others were so plant-like that he only determined that they were people when they blinked or otherwise moved.

"What happened here?" Tim whispered once they reached the bay.

"She won," Jason said simply. "The entire world is like this. Every single human on the planet was transformed. I think that all the primates were transformed too, though I never stuck around long enough to be sure."

Tim shivered and moved so that he was pressed up against Jason's left side. Jason wrapped an arm around his shoulders. It was hard not to be afraid of something happening to them. This 'verse was so bizarre that Time felt threatened. The people were too foreign, the city too destroyed, for him to be comfortable here.

"Why did you bring me here?" Tim asked as they watched the sun slowly setting over the bay.

The sky was brilliant with fiery reds and golds. There were a few clouds in the sky and they stained glorious pink, lavender and purple. This 'verse was off of Tim's internal clock's time, which he assumed was part of it's having been so different from their 'verse. To him it felt like mid-morning, not evening. Tim nudged Jason when he didn't answer the question immediately.

"Because this is where I started," Jason said in a low murmur. "This is the first 'verse I visited. I took my first steps back home right here. And I knew we'd get to see a fucking stunning sunset here. Volcano went off in Iceland and it's making some really great sunsets right now."

He grinned at Tim's blush and mock-groan. Tim wrapped an arm around Jason's waist, enjoying the solidity of his body even with the armor plating under his jacket's leather exterior. Oddly, he found that he enjoyed the armor plates too. It was good to know that Jason had more protection than the shields that they both wore.

"You know, I never expected this," Tim commented once the sun had slid past the horizon and dusk fell around them.

"What? A world like this?" Jason asked. He gestured at the walking greenery around them.

"No, that you would be a flaming romantic," Tim teased. He laughed at Jason's indignant splutter and dug his fingers into Jason's side to keep him from escaping. "I think I like it."

"Really?" Jason asked.

It was hard to tell in the rapidly falling darkness but Tim thought that Jason was blushing. Tim nodded and caught Jason's cheek with his free hand so that he could kiss Jason. The kiss went straight to tongue and arms wrapped tight around Tim's back and then slid back into something tender and almost shy after a moment.

"Yeah," Tim murmured once they parted lips. "Really."

+++++

"All right, this is a little more normal than walking trees," Tim commented as Jason bullied their way into a club that was rapidly filling with excited people. "Crowded, but more normal that the last one."

Jason just laughed, pulling Tim over close to the stage door. The bodyguard at the door did a double take when he saw the two of them, frowning as if he couldn't figure out what they were doing there. He opened the door and pushed the two of them through without a word, despite Tim's nascent protest.

"Jason!" Tim hissed.

"What the hell?" another Jason said, poking his head out into the hallway to stare at them. "The fuck is going on out… here?"

"Sorry, mistaken identity," Jason said with a huge grin. "We just came to listen to the show."

"What show?" Tim demanded.

"What's going on?" Dick asked. He stepped out of what had to be a dressing room and lit up like a searchlight going on. "I don't believe it! Tim, guess who's back?"

"What?"

Tim shivered at the nervous, cranky tone of his alternate coming from the back room. He couldn't be a musician. There was no way. But his alternate self stepped out and yes, he was obviously getting ready to perform.

"You found him!" the other Tim said with a huge smile of delight that looked very odd on his face to Tim. "Come in. I want to hear what happened."

"Only if we don't throw you guys off," Jason said while letting them be drawn into the dressing room. "I know you gotta be busy getting ready to perform."

Dick's clothes were performer flashy and the other Jason looked like he had on makeup. The world wobbled a little, but Jason was there holding Tim's hand. The other Tim gestured for Tim to sit on the couch with what looked like a shy smile on his lips. Steph squeaked at their appearance and Damian scowled, so obviously things weren't too different here.

"This is so odd," Tim commented as Jason made sure he settled in on a battered old couch that was strewn with spare clothes. Even Alfred was there, puttering with folding the discarded clothes.

"You didn't tell him where you were going?" the other Tim asked.

"I wanted to surprise him," Jason said.

He looked a little ashamed of himself, which Tim thought was appropriate. Tim rather felt like the world was still wobbling. How Jason dealt with all the differences he would never know. But then Dick put a cup of hot tea in Tim's hands and patted his head fondly while Jason argued with musician Jason about whether bass was better than drums. They both jockeyed to keep the other one away from their respective Tim.

"So what's going on?" the other Tim asked. He perched on the arm of the sofa and looked at Tim rather than at Jason and Jason.

"We're… on a date," Tim admitted with a blush that intensified because of the scoffing noise Damian made. "Our Damian has reacted almost exactly the same way, except with more snide comments."

"And cock blocking," Jason added.

"Good," the other Tim said, smiling at Tim's Jason in a far too approving way. "About the date, that is. Not the blocking."

Tim's back went rigid as he realized that this was yet another Tim that had gotten to be with Jason. It took some of the luster off of the whole encounter, though the tea was much better than what he was used to. It had to be one of Alfred's special blends. Tim sipped it while glaring at his Jason. Being presented with another person who had had sex with Jason was not exactly the most comfortable thing in the world.

"I believe it is time to get ready," Alfred announced.

The others' head swiveled to look at the clock and then there was a mad scramble to finish dressing, apply makeup and scramble for the door. Tim's Jason watched it all with a little grin that made Tim want to smack him. The other Jason got Jason to help with some gear, pulling him away from the couch. The other Tim put his hand on Tim's shoulder, one spot of stillness in the chaos surrounding them.

"He was hurt, injured," the other Tim murmured. "He didn't approach me. I approached him. It was… a hard time for both of us. I'd just started performing again after… a really bad experience. Don't hold it against him. I was the one who pushed it. I needed the tenderness after what I went through."

"No, that's fine," Tim murmured back. "It's just the whole meeting other lovers while on a date thing."

The other Tim muffled a laugh in a snort, rolling his eyes as if his Jason had pulled similar stunts. They got swept up in the rush for the stage and ended up getting to watch the show with Alfred from the back. It wasn't the best view but Tim appreciated not having to put up with the excited crowd on the dance floor.

Their music wasn't like anything that he'd heard before, at least until he realized that he'd heard Jason playing their songs from his gauntlet. At turns sad, wild and exotic, the music expressed a degree of loss that made Tim's heart hurt. It said things that he'd felt when he'd been hunting for proof that Bruce wasn't gone. Towards the end of the concert the other Tim looked at them in the wings and nodded once.

He stepped forward and the others moved back, allowing him to take center stage. The whole crowd stilled, murmuring something about Gotham shadows. Tim looked at his Jason who had set his gauntlet to record and then at Alfred who just rested a hand on Tim's shoulder comfortingly.

"Oh," Tim breathed as the other Tim sang.

If he'd thought that the Robin's other songs were sad and full of longing, Tim now realized that he'd been wrong. This one song distilled all the loss they had to have gone through. His heart hurt with how much pain there was in all five of the Robin's faces.

"Bruce died," Tim whispered to Jason.

"Yeah, trapped in the cave during an earthquake," Jason whispered back. "He'd sent them away. Gotham's a ruin. They don't have a home to go to anymore. Just have each other."

Tim leaned into Jason's side, suddenly grateful for the chance to see their other selves perform. As odd as it was to be here, it was almost cleansing to realize that things could be worse and yet better at the same time. The Robins looked like a family, a true family instead of the conglomeration of crime fighters that he was used to. They'd managed to forge a new life from their loss. It was beautiful.

It took three encores before the Robins were able to escape back to their dressing room. Dick stayed out front in the club to talk to their fans. Steph joined him. Jason, Tim and Damian left them to it.

"Good night," the other Jason sighed. He collapsed on the couch and pulled his Tim down into his lap. The defiant look he threw at Jason made both Tim and his other self grin.

"They're all jealous, aren't they?" Tim asked his other self.

"I think so," the other Tim said with a little laugh. "Or at least possessive."

Alfred arrived with pizza for everyone to share. It didn't take long for Dick and Steph to show up after the pizza got there. Pretty soon it had turned into a low-key party, with Jason telling them all about his trip home and then the battle against Red Hood. Tim let him keep everyone's attention, content to stay in the background while picking the pineapple off of his slice of Hawaiian pizza. The other Tim settled by his side, doing the same thing to his pizza.

"He seems happy," the other Tim commented.

"I think he is," Tim said thoughtfully. "He… says that I'm home. Not the mansion or Gotham but me. It seems like it sometimes. Home is who you love, not where you live. If you have that then… anywhere can be home."

The other Tim shivered, as did Damian. They exchanged a look that made the others still and stare at them. Tim looked at them curiously, not sure what he'd said to make them look simultaneously excited and nervous.

"I think you two need to come back in six months or so," the other Tim said.

"What?" Dick asked.

"I think I have a new song to write," Tim said.

"You do," Damian said with bedrock certainty.

The little smile of thanks that Damian leveled at Tim made the world wobble again for a moment. Jason cocked his head at them and then chuckled. He shrugged and tapped several keys on his gauntlet.

"You got it," Jason said. "I set a reminder to come back. It'll be worth it. So what's the theme?"

"Home is who you love, not where you live," the other Tim said with a blindingly bright grin at the other Robins that got him tackle hugged so hard by Dick that he nearly toppled off of the couch. Dick's hug evolved into a group hug that prompted Tim to stand up and move to his Jason's side. Jason went beet red at the sentiment but he offered a hand to Tim that Tim took and squeezed gently.

"It's true, you know," Jason murmured.

"I know," Tim agreed. "And you're still a romantic at heart."

Jason laughed and leaned over to kiss Tim gently on the lips. He tasted of meat-covered pizza and Coke. Tim leaned into the kiss, unembarrassed to kiss Jason here, with the others present and presumably watching. This wasn't the sort of concert he'd expected when Jason had idly mentioned it but he was glad they'd come.

"So are you," Jason whispered once they let each other's lips go.

"Maybe." Tim allowed with a tiny smile. "But only with you."

+++++

"I hate this," Temperance hissed to Jay as she uncomfortably shifted position for the dozenth time in the last five minutes. There were so many guests here for the wedding that they hadn't been able to get chairs. Not that Jay thought Bruce would have let them take chairs anyway. Those were reserved for the people who weren't helping make sure that the wedding went well.

"It's almost over," Jay murmured as comfortingly as he could, given how sick he was of the suit and tie and his tight, squeaky shoes.

"I've been wearing heels for four hours," Temperance whispered in a snarl that would have made any thug on the street run in terror. "They haven't even gotten to the vows yet. Why did we have to attend Diana and Steve's wedding anyway?"

"Everyone has to attend," Jay said with a tired sigh. "It's right here in the manor, Temp."

He looked around the room to avoid looking at the bitchy, tired expression on her face and started when he spotted Jason and boy-Tim peeking in with wide eyes. Jay nudged Temperance and jerked his head towards the door where they were lurking. Temperance grinned for the first time since they'd all gathered in the ballroom. They moved as one to slide through the crowd of friends, superheroes and society people they couldn't afford not to invite.

"What the hell?" Jason asked once they'd slipped outside and carefully shut the door.

"Diana's finally marrying Steve," Temperance said as she pulled of her shoes and wiggled her toes with a grateful sigh of relief. "It's this huge thing. They already had a private ceremony on Paradise Island so I don't know why we have to dress up and wait through this. They should have just had a reception."

Jay grinned at the wide-eyes on Jason and Tim's faces as they listened to Temperance's little rant. Of course, Jay was staring at the considerable amount of cleavage Temperance's dress revealed. Tim seemed far more fascinated by her shoes.

"How do you walk in heels that high?" Tim asked.

"Practice," Temperance said. She shrugged casually.

"Hmm, I never managed to learn how to walk in heels that high for undercover missions," Tim commented. "Two inches was about the most I could handle."

Jay's brain broke for a second on the idea of Tim dressed as a girl in heels and makeup. It wasn't a difficult image to summon, not with Temperance standing next to him. It was the thought of a small bust instead of Temp's large one, and slim hips with a surprise package under the skirt that made his libido overwhelm him for a moment.

"You are such a dog," Jason laughed.

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Jay complained, especially when Tim snickered and Temperance gave him the stink eye. "Like you're not staring at Temp's tits."

"They're both dogs," Temperance sighed.

"I know," Tim agreed. "They can't help it. We should probably go. I don't want to interrupt the celebration."

"Please interrupt," Temperance said, clutching Tim's sleeve to keep him from disappearing. At the same time she waved her shoes at him.

Tim laughed silently and nodded that they'd stay. It was easy enough to slip away down to the cave. Jay made sure that Jason and Tim could watch the wedding on the monitors before insisting that Temperance and he headed back upstairs. Temperance looked like she wanted to murder him as she slipped her shoes back on.

"You know we need to be there," Jay said.

"That doesn't mean I have to like it," Temperance grumbled.

They'd managed to stay away long enough that all the flowery speeches about the joys of marriage were over and the actual vows had begun. Jay pulled Temperance into his arms during the vows, smiling when she blushed and then relaxed against his side. She might not want to admit it but the thought of getting married did appeal to her. Jay could tell. Whether he really wanted to do it was a completely different question that made his stomach go all quivery, worse than facing all of their enemies at once.

It took another three hours before they could escape for good. They grabbed food and headed down to the cave to see if Jason and Tim had remained despite the lack of anyone to talk to. The cave was quiet and still, which made Jay sigh regretfully. He'd wanted to check on their gauntlets and see where they'd been lately. Temperance frowned and looked around. She flung her shoes at the base of the monitors and then walked on silk-stocking clad feet towards the shower rooms.

"Why would they be back there?" Jay asked. "They have to have gone home."

Temperance didn't answer. Instead she snuck into the shower room and then smirked to hear little whimpers coming from one of the changing stalls that Bruce had installed after Temperance became Robin. Jay grinned and followed Temperance in sneaking forward to ease the door of the stall open so that they could see what Jason and Tim were doing. After all the times that Jason had interrupted them it felt like very appropriate payback.

Once they opened the door, it felt like something else entirely. Jay's cock leaped and decided it really wanted to explore the idea of a Temperance with a dick. It was way wrong at the same time it was fucking sexy beyond belief, not that he'd ever say that to Temperance. He happened to like his balls functioning and she wouldn't appreciate the sentiment.

Jason was sitting on the bench with Tim straddling his lap. Their kiss looked like it had gone past first base and into serious foreplay at least half an hour ago. Tim's shirt was on the floor and Jason's jacket and shirt dangled off of one end of the bench. From the look of it Tim liked getting bitten on the neck as much as Temperance did.

"We shouldn't," Tim murmured in a strangled tone that made Jay a little lightheaded with lust. "They could… come downstairs…"

"Mmm-hmm," Jason mumbled into the meaty part of Tim's neck. "Don't care."

"Jaaaaa-son!" Tim whined in same way that Temperance did when she was so turned on that it kind of frightened her.

She made a little strangled whimper that caused both Jason and Tim freeze. When Tim turned his head and spotted them he blushed so hard that Jay thought for a second he might get a nosebleed. Jason groaned and glared at both of them like he wanted to pound their heads into the wall. Given how tented out both Tim and Jason's pants were when Tim got up and scrambled for his shirt, Jay didn't blame him.

"We'll be out by the monitors," Jay said while grabbing Temperance's arm so that she couldn't do something impulsive and hormonal that was likely to embarrass Tim even further. "Got food from the buffet if you want it."

"Thanks," Jason growled. He didn't sound grateful at all.

Jay scooped Temperance up and carried her out to the seat in front of the monitors. She moaned when he settled her into his lap. The whole situation made him want to laugh. He couldn't count how many times Jason had interrupted the two of them before he found his way home. Hell, the whole time he'd been staying with them before the belt was done he'd damn near made a hobby out of interrupting them when they were making out.

"Feel better for interrupting him?" Jay asked.

"That…" Temperance's voice trailed off and she blushed as brightly as Tim had.

"Sexy?"

"Yeah…"

"We can always invite them back for a foursome," Jay offered with a huge grin.

He'd be way up for that and he was pretty sure that Jason would be too. Getting to see Tim and Temperance kissing and making out would be worth having to share with Jason, though from the way Jason had been touching Tim his style was totally different from Jay's. He wouldn't have thought that any version of Jason Todd had that much tenderness in him.

"Yeah," Temperance said just before she kissed him so hard that their teeth clacked together and his lips felt bruised.

Yeah, they definitely had to offer. Tim would probably die from sheer embarrassment but it'd be worth it if he said yes. Definitely worth it.

+++++

"I can't believe that they walked in on us," Tim complained as they pulled on their shirts again.

The cave was so quiet that Tim could hear Jay and Temperance's voices out in the other room. It sounded like they were holding a murmured conversation. Tim's cheeks felt like they were burning. He alternated between completely humiliated that he'd been seen that way with Jason and utterly furious that they'd been interrupted before they'd gotten naked together.

"Fucking pain in the goddamned ass," Jason grumbled. "I'd swear that Temperance did it on purpose. Not my fucking fault those two were making out all over the goddamned place all the fucking time."

Tim stopped buttoning up his shirt to stare at Jason. "You walked in on them?"

"A few times," Jason said in the exact right way to convey that it had been more like a few dozen times.

Tim huffed at him and shook his head. By the time they were dressed (and Tim's erection had gone down) his cheeks had stopped burning. They headed out to the monitor area. Excuses and apologies hovered on Tim's lips until they rounded the corner and they interrupted Jay and Temperance making out.

"Okay," Jason drawled, "What? You're inviting us to join in?"

"Jason!" Tim hissed at him.

Temperance moaned and shuddered in Jay's lap, so visibly turned on that Tim's cock jumped, much to his surprise. Jay grinned at him and shrugged. Tim almost expected Jason to take them up on it but instead he wrapped an arm around Tim's shoulders and shook his head 'no'.

"Sorry guys," Jason said. "Not happening. At least not yet. Not until Tim's at least comfortable with me."

"Jealous," Jay said with a little smirk that wasn't quite as confident as it probably should have been.

Tim looked at Temperance rather than listen to the two of them talk smack at each other. She looked embarrassed by how aroused she was. Tim shivered, responding to her arousal and then to the thought of what it would be like to explore his body but only as girl's body. The thought really shouldn't be as exciting as it was. He thought Temperance might feel the same way from the look in her eyes.

Once Jay and Jason were done pretending to intimidate each other they ate a little food but Tim was far too nervous to eat much. Besides, they'd promised to be home for dinner so he didn't want to ruin his appetite. When Jason finally gave into Tim's fidgeting and not very subtle hints that they should get home, Temperance jumped up and hugged him hard.

"Sorry," Temperance whispered.

"It's okay," Tim whispered back. "You really want to…?"

"Oh yeah." Temperance pulled back and stared at Tim for a long moment.

Her eyes were intent on his as she slowly leaned in to kiss him. He could have avoided the kiss easily but he didn't. Curiosity was too powerful a drive for him to resist, especially when it was a girl version of himself. Kissing Temperance was completely different from kissing Jason or Steph or anyone else. They both seemed to know exactly how the other liked to be kissed, which made sense given that they were practically the same person. Tim laughed as he realized that he could feel the stiffness in Temperance's body as she thought about it far too hard, just like him.

"We're thinking too hard," Tim murmured.

"Yeah," Temperance said. Her lips curled in a little smile against his cheek. "Still like to try it someday. Later."

"Later," Tim agreed. "We do need to go."

Temperance nodded and let Tim go. She was blushing as hard as he was. Jay looked like he was about to explode from sheer hormones. Jason looked a good bit calmer about it, other than the way his pants looked four sizes too small. When Jason took Tim's hand, his grip was gentle and welcoming rather than the firm, claiming grip that Tim expected.

"See you guys in a while," Jason said.

He triggered their belt and they were gone, which would have been a relief except they arrived in the Chief and Timothy's 'verse to find the Chief shoving Timothy up against the wall and kissing almost brutally. Tim groaned and dropped his forehead into one hand.

"What is it with us today?" Tim asked Jason very quietly though not quietly enough to keep their older selves from noticing. They broke off the kiss and glared at Jason and Tim. "I swear that it's the day of interruptions."

"No kidding," Jason agreed. "Sorry, just wanted to drop off a suit design that I wanted a second opinion on. I think I've got everything smoothed out but I wanted to be sure. There're some potential conflicts between modules I wanted you to check for me."

"Leave it on the control panel and get out," Timothy said imperiously enough that the Chief chuckled. "If this happens again I'm installing a blocker that keeps you from just waltzing in here."

"Fair deal," Jason said.

Jason pulled Tim away, laughing under his breath as the Chief started to say something only to be cut off as Timothy grabbed him and hauled him back in for a kiss that looked to remove tonsils. Tim's cheeks were burning again so he was glad to be out of the room and away from yet another case of passion interruptus.

"Old people kissing," Jason said in a teasing tone of voice. "Yuck."

"Oh please, you're still hard as a rock," Tim said with a gesture at Jason's crotch. "Is there somewhere we can go where there's a guarantee that we won't be interrupted? I mean, after dinner. We promised to be back for dinner."

"Sure," Jason said. He smiled as he dropped the flash drive onto Timothy's computer. "There's a 'verse where I don't exist. I found alternate versions of you and Kon on a deserted island. There's a house, bed, tropical climate. It's actually quite nice if you can get there and away with ease."

"Which we can," Tim said. He thought about it for all of about one tenth of a second. "After dinner, if there aren't any major problems, I'd like to see it."

Jason grinned and pulled Tim into his arms to press one of his ultra-gentle kisses against Tim's lips. "Anything you want," he whispered. "Everything I do, everywhere I've been, everything I have is for you, Tim."

+++++

"Thank fucking God," Jason groaned as they finally made their escape.

The last two weeks had been non-stop hell. It kind of felt like their date had resulted in the entire world landing on their heads and trying to force the two of them apart. Between the Arkham escape, suit redesigns for both him and Tim, the normal crime that wracked Gotham, and Damian's determined resistance to anything vaguely sexy happening where he might someday possibly be required to notice it, they'd gotten nothing more than occasional pecks and falling into bed together every morning.

"No kidding," Tim sighed. "At least my suit is finally done."

"Yeah, and my shield pack's a lot more effective," Jason agreed.

The island was as beautiful as it had been the last time Jason visited. It was a gloriously bright and warm morning, with just enough of a breeze to make the heat pleasant instead of unbearable. Jason led the way to the little ramshackle house that he'd claimed as his own. It was still secure, with no signs of either intruders or animals getting in. All the canned food he'd left was in place. The box of freeze-dried food was perfectly secure too. Even the netting around the bed looked untouched.

"This isn't quite what I was expecting," Tim commented. He stripped off his jacket and dropped it on the rickety table with obvious relief.

"Never said it was a five star hotel," Jason said, shrugging out of his jacket too. "Just that it was a house and there's no one else around. Wanna go for a swim? I got sunscreen in here somewhere."

"I hope you have aloe too," Tim said with a rueful smile. "I'll need it later if we go swimming."

"Grows all over the place," Jason reassured him. "I could coat you from head to toe if I needed to."

They quickly stripped down to boxers and then Jason took a good long time covering Tim's pale, scarred body with sunscreen. It was the really good stuff with SPF a billion or something close to it. Tim relaxed into the touching and then returned the favor for Jason though he seemed a lot more focused on groping than applying sunscreen. They spent a while kissing on the net-shrouded bed before heading out to the beach.

"Wow," Tim breathed as he stared at the ocean.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Jason murmured.

The island had a protected lagoon that had tiny fish but not much else in it. You could see straight through the crystal blue water to the sandy sea floor. Gentle waves lapped over their toes. Farther out, bigger waves crashed against the breakwater that sheltered the lagoon. Beyond that, the ocean and sky met in an expanse of blue that looked like something an artist had painted instead of anything real. Jason would have said that it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen except that when he looked at Tim the whole place seemed like nothing more than an inconsequential backdrop.

"You're staring again," Tim commented. He smiled the shy smile except it had gotten a lot less shy over the last month or so. Instead it was confident, tender and pleased.

"Yeah, I am," Jason said with a cocky grin that probably wasn't half as cocky as it should be. "Can you blame me?"

Tim just laughed and pulled Jason out into the water. It was warm as bathwater. Tim swam as gracefully as if he'd been born a fish. Jason splashed around. Bruce had made sure that he knew how to swim properly for water rescues and crap like that but this wasn't work. It was fun so Jason just enjoyed himself.

Jason ducked under the water and surged up from underneath to catch Tim and pull him into his arms for a kiss that was full of water splashing and laughter and the two of them treading water together. Tim smiled and nuzzled Jason's cheek. Jason reciprocated and then laughed as Tim moved his head to the side, baring his neck in a silent invitation that there was no fucking way Jason would refuse.

"Perv," Jason murmured just before he bit Tim's neck and left a nice big hickie for Dick and Damian to see when they got home.

"Loo~ok who's talking," Tim said, gasping in the middle for another bite on his shoulder.

They rocked together and slowly swam back toward shore with little kicks and fluttering hands because they were too busy kissing each other to take it seriously. Once the water was shallow enough for Jason to stand, Tim wrapped his arms and legs around Jason to cling to him. They ended up on the sand, exploring each other's bodies. Despite the sand and salt on their skins it was the most perfect moment of Jason's life.

"Getting a little red," Jason commented somewhere between ten minutes and ten hours later. He wasn't sure which it had been and wasn't about to check his gauntlet to find out.

"Mmm, should rinse off and head in then," Tim murmured while delicately licking droplets of water off of Jason's stomach.

"Oh fuck, don't stop," Jason groaned when Tim completely bypassed his aching cock and sat up instead.

"You closely resemble a lobster in places," Tim laughed. "I think I fail at applying sunscreen. Come on. Let's get cleaned up and head back into the house where there's an actual bed to share."

"I can handle that," Jason declared after a moment of brain vapor lock due to the image of Tim naked and in bed with him without any possibility of being interrupted yet again.

There was a little waterfall close to the house and they used that to rinse each other off. The boxers got removed and rinsed out, leaving both of them gloriously naked as well as mildly sunburned. Or at least Tim was mildly sunburned. Jason suspected that his nose and shoulders were kind of scorched but he didn't really care. Yet. Tomorrow was another day and he'd worry about it then.

"You're going to hurt if we don't do something about this," Tim commented as Jason carried him up the stairs into the house.

"Fix it later," Jason mumbled into his neck. "More important things now."

Tim laughed silently into his neck and then gasped as Jason tossed him down on the bed. His feet were clean due to Jason carrying him but Jason still had to brush all the sand off if they didn't want it getting in seriously uncomfortable places. Tim distracted him by delicately licking droplets of water creeping down his neck from his hair while Jason got clean.

"Tease," Jason laughed once he was done cleaning his feet.

"No teasing," Tim said. He tugged Jason into the netting and made sure it was closed. "No more teasing."

Tim draped himself on top of Jason. He was long and lean where Jason was bulky. Their scars certainly were well matched, even if their builds weren't. Not that it mattered to Jason one way or the other, because he had everything he wanted right there with him, especially as Tim carefully aligned their bodies so that their naked cocks rubbed against each other.

"Oh fuck," Jason groaned.

"I have sunscreen but no lube," Tim murmured as he gently rocked against Jason. "What do you want to do?"

" _Anything_ you want," Jason moaned. "However you want it."

"This," Tim said, sliding an already slick hand between them to cup their cocks and make them slide together. "Just this. Want to feel this, share this with you."

Jason thrust against Tim's stomach, his cock, his so slippery and perfect hand. It drew a little gasp of pleasure out of Tim and made his eyelids droop shut. Tim answered the thrust with one of his own; a decisive one that was a mixture of need and want, dominance and submission. He dropped his forehead to Jason's chest, panting against Jason's shoulder as they rocked together.

When Jason wrapped his hands around Tim's ass so that he could thrust harder Tim made the sexiest little mewing sound. It went straight to his balls, tightening them as arousal roared up like a rogue wave coming to suck him under. Tim hooked his toes over the top of Jason's feet and pushed hard, driving their cocks together until there was nothing more than Tim's sweaty, slippery skin and his perfect hard cock.

"Tim!" Jason shouted as he came so hard that he saw stars.

He bucked through each surge of orgasm, hearing and feeling Tim's come joining his on his stomach. They rocked together for a long, long time, until both of them had gone down and they were damn near glued together by the mingled sweat and come. Jason ran his fingers over Tim's back while kissing his forehead tenderly.

"Good?" Tim asked in a way too hesitant tone of voice.

"You fucking kidding me?" Jason asked. He blinked his eyes to try and clear the blurriness. "Tim, I don't think I've ever come that hard before in my entire life."

Tim shook with silent laughter. He made a face a moment later and carefully moved away from Jason. They were both sticky and gross but Jason sat up and caught Tim's hand before he could reach for the towel outside of the netting.

"Thank you," Jason whispered just loud enough to be heard over the quiet sound of waves and birds singing outside.

"For…?" Tim asked. He blushed brightly but smiled at the same time.

"Everything," Jason said. "I've never been this happy before, Tim. You've given that to me."

"I think you've given me more," Tim murmured as he crawled back into Jason's lap despite the mess.

"I have so much more I want to give you," Jason murmured against Tim's lips. "A life time's worth of things."

"We have time," Tim whispered.

He kissed Jason so tenderly that he thought his heart would explode with joy. Nothing could be as perfect as this day, though Jason had every intention of making tomorrow and the day after and the day after that better than this one.

+++++

"I really messed up the sunscreen," Tim sighed as he finally finished applying fresh aloe to Jason's sunburn. It seemed like most of Jason's body was covered in aloe.

"Eh, it's okay," Jason said with a casual shrug. "I'll survive."

"If you can even sleep tonight," Tim said. "And it's going to make fighting painful for a few days."

Jason's shoulders were so red that they radiated. His arms had huge patches of sunburn with odd hand-shaped spots that were only lightly tanned. The patches exactly matched where Tim had clung to Jason's arms as they kissed before going out to swim. One thigh was burned but the other one was nearly as white as it had been before they'd arrived.

"Hey, seriously," Jason said in his most gentle tone of voice. His eyes were amused, not worried. "I'm fine. I've been sunburned before. It really isn't that big of a deal. I heal up pretty quick. By day after tomorrow I'll just be itchy, not sore at all."

"You're sure?" Tim asked.

"Completely certain," Jason said. He nodded and then laughed at the dubious expression that stretched across Tim's face. "Could make it up to me if you feel really bad about it."

Tim studied Jason's face, the patches of sunburn across his nose and forehead doing nothing to conceal the hopeful look. He nodded after a moment even though he wasn't certain exactly what Jason wanted him to do. Hopefully it wouldn't be anything too wild.

"You sure?" Jason asked.

"I'm sure," Tim said. His voice came out perfectly confident but Jason clearly could see that Tim was a little nervous about whatever Jason wanted to do.

"It's nothing big," Jason said. "I'd just like to blindfold you and then touch you."

"Um, not sex?" Tim asked as the butterflies in his stomach transformed into elephants from sheer nervousness.

"No lube." Jason shrugged. "Piss poor planning on my part, I know, but we can still do a lot together. I mean, if you want to."

Tim nodded. He traced the edges of the burn on Jason's chest. It wasn't that he was nervous, exactly, though he was nervous about it. Blindfolds weren't something that he really liked, well, he didn't think that he liked them but if Jason wanted to try it he supposed that he could do it.

"Okay then," Jason said. "Lie back and get comfortable."

Tim lay down on the bed, trying to ignore the way his heart pounded. Jason fished around outside of the netting surrounding the bed and came up with a handkerchief. He barely draped it around Tim's face, not bothering to knot it. A shiver crept over Tim as Jason leaned back. He could still see a little bit. There was light and shadow, a tiny glimpse of the world out of the corner of his right eye, but not much else.

"God but you're gorgeous," Jason murmured.

"Jason…"

"Hush, let me Tim. I've waited so long to have you all to myself," Jason said with a gentle hand on Tim's ankle. "Let me look at you, touch you."

Tim shivered and nodded while swallowing hard around the nervous lump in his throat. Jason's fingers slowly ran up the inside of Tim's leg to his knee. The other hand copied its movements. Goosepimples raised all over his legs. Jason laughed and rubbed his hands over Tim's legs far more firmly, warming the chilled skin. He shifted forwards and explored Tim's thighs, finding every single scar that Tim had gathered over the years.

It felt good, strange, but good. He'd never have imagined that Jason could be this tender, this gentle. In his mind he'd always assumed that Jason would be a brutal lover, taking what he wanted from his partner with little regard for their enjoyment. The other Jason, the crazy one, probably was, but this Jason, the real Jason seemed to regard every moment of intimacy as a gift beyond price.

"Jason…" Tim whimpered as lips pressed against his right hipbone.

"Mmm…" was all that Jason said.

Lips joined Jason's hands in exploring Tim's body. Tim did his best to stay still for the process but it was hard to do it when every little brush of flesh against flesh had him trembling with arousal. He wanted to take the blindfold off. He wanted to tie it on so tightly that he couldn't see anything. Conflicting urges to run or to take control eventually subsided as Tim relaxed into Jason's control.

He was safe.

A little sob slipped past Tim's lips as he realized he truly was safe with Jason. Jason would never do anything to hurt him. He put Tim's welfare and happiness so far ahead of his own that it was damned near pathological. When Jason's lips brushed against Tim's lips it was more than Tim could handle. Without either of them touching his cock he came, panting against Jason's lips.

"I've got you, Tim," Jason murmured. "Shhh, I've got you."

"Jason…" Tim moaned one more time.

He tried to put 'I love you', 'I want you', 'I know,' and 'Thank you' into the single word. Tim wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to say it out loud but Jason seemed to understand what Tim was trying to convey. He carefully draped himself on top of Tim, rocking against Tim's body for a long moment before he came too.

"Tim…"

Jason's voice conveyed all the same things, plus a bone-deep gratitude that made Tim's eyes prickle with tears behind the flimsy blindfold. He carefully wrapped his arms around Jason's back, holding him close despite their respective releases, the aloe and Jason's sunburn. He almost wished that they could stay here forever, just the two of them.

Eventually Jason pulled back and carefully cleaned Tim's body up. When he pulled the blindfold away the room seemed incredibly bright to Tim. He blinked up at Jason, smiling at the way the setting sun created a halo around Jason's hair. The one white lock on his forehead shone brightly in the dimness of the room.

"Look like an angel," Tim murmured. He grinned at the disgusted expression that appeared on Jason's face.

"I am so not an angel, no matter what you or any other Timmy thinks," Jason grumbled as he thumped down on the bed next to Tim.

"Is there a Tim who thinks you're an angel?" Tim asked.

Jason laughed and nodded. "Guess I never told you about the Black Plague Tim, huh?"

"Tell me you didn't catch it," Tim growled. He poked Jason in the chest in one of the spots that wasn't burned.

"Nope, didn't catch it at all, though it was a close thing," Jason said in the tone of voice that meant he was about to tell Tim stories. Tim settled in to listen, carefully moving close and draping himself on the non-burned places on Jason's body. Going home could wait a while. He wanted to enjoy what little time he had left to be completely alone with Jason.

+++++

Laughter rang though the cave, making Dick cock his head in surprise. It wasn't a sound he was used to hearing, unless the laughter came from his mouth. For a long while there, while Bruce was 'gone', Dick hadn't felt like laughing at all which had been so strange that he'd felt like someone else entirely. He looked around the corner and started chuckling. When Jason had announced that he and Tim were going on another of their dates on another world he'd said something about coming back with sunburns but Dick had assumed that it would be Tim with the sunburn. Given Tim's pale skin it had made sense, not that it turned out that way.

"Nice," Dick drawled. "You look like a lobster, Jay."

"Eh, had some problems with the sunscreen," Jason said. His grin couldn't be any wider unless his head separated at the jaw. "Not that bad. I've had worse."

"On the volcano planet with no ozone," Tim said. He shook his head with dismay but he was smiling brightly too, which was a sight for sore eyes as far as Dick was concerned.

"I guess you two had a good time then," Dick said as he leaned against the doorjamb.

Tim went blazingly red and clapped a hand against his neck, not quite fast enough to hide the hickie poking out of his shirt. There was another smaller one higher up that no shirt was going to cover. Jason's grin got decidedly predatory, at least until Tim elbowed him and made him grunt much louder than Dick would have expected.

"Serious sunscreen failures?" Dick laughed.

"Well, maybe," Jason said as he gingerly rubbed his side.

"Definitely. I'm fine. Jason, not so much," Tim sighed. He looked up at the stairs in a blatant effort to change the subject. "What's Alfred making for dinner? We're starved."

"I think he's planning on beef stroganoff over rice with carrots and peas," Dick said and firmly switched the subject right back. "So what's the hickey count? I want to know how much ranting I'm going to have to put up with from Damian when he sees you two."

Tim's expression went from embarrassed but happy to offended and angry nearly instantly. Jason rolled his eyes and smirked while rubbing Tim's back. Dick grinned at the two of them. It was strange to see Jason be the calm one but given how badly Tim and Damian conflicted it really didn't surprise him.

"You counting just Tim's or mine too?" Jason asked with a sexy smirk that somehow managed to make Dick's cheeks blush.

"He's not counting either."

Tim cut them both off before Dick could formulate a comment that wasn't astonished at the fact that Tim had so little (or so much?) control as to leave hickies behind. Or that he bit. Dick wouldn't have thought that Tim was a biter. Jason certainly, but not Tim. Dick's mouth was still hanging open when Tim pulled Jason straight past Dick towards the elevator up to the mansion.

"Catching flies there, Big Bird," Jason said as he passed Dick. He tapped Dick's jaw with one finger, making him snap his mouth shut.

"You…!" Dick spluttered through his surprised laughs. "You planned that!"

"Nope," Jason said with a shit-eating grin that looked like pure joy.

"Come on, you," Tim laughed. He tugged Jason's arm, catching him with a surprise kiss that was more sweet and tender than anything Dick had ever seen from Tim before. "I'm starving. Let's go upstairs, get cleaned up and see if the aloe's done anything for your sunburn."

"Sounds good," Jason said.

They headed into the elevator together. Tim's hand rested on Jason's elbow. Jason's fingertips rubbed against Tim's hip as if he couldn't stop touching. Dick stared at them and then stared at the closed door of the elevator once they were gone.

"Huh."

He smiled and headed into the monitor room to get a sense of what was coming up tonight for them. Hopefully Tim and Jason would be able to spend some more time off. Not because of the sunburn, though that did factor in. No, Dick mostly thought that it would be good for them to have some time together at home, preferably without Damian doing his best to sabotage their relationship because it was 'disturbing, wrong and why did they have to do that here?'

Dick really hoped that Damian grew up a bit soon. It was hard enough running interference on his automatic urge to kill anyone who got in his way. Having to keep him from meddling in Tim and Jason's private lives was a bit too much to deal with.

+++++

"I… hate… Damian," Tim growled around the various bits of Jason's flesh that he was busily marking with his teeth. He'd followed Jason into the changing room and slammed the door shut before pressing Jason back against it. The sheer hotness of Tim being dominant and angry had him groaning, not to mention the biting that made him forget that there was patrol to do and Damian on the other side of the relatively flimsy wall.

"Hates you too," Jason gasped at a particularly hard bite just below his collarbone.

"You will cease this at once!" Damian shouted from outside the changing room.

"Damian…"

The scolding tone came from Dick, Bruce, Alfred and, from the sound of it, Steph. Tim growled more loudly and left a huge hickie on Jason's throat. Jason laughed through the pain of the bite and grabbed Tim, spinning the two of them around so that it was Tim pressed against the door this time. Tim grunted, the anger sliding away into arousal that made his pupils expand for a moment.

Jason kissed Tim, not at all surprised when Tim bit his lip and held on rather then let Jason pull away. He kissed again, harder, clunking Tim's head back against the door. It was bizarrely hot do be doing this with everyone else outside the door. Granted, Tim had probably started it to prove a point to Damian but Jason was more than happy to take it to the next level even though everyone was listening outside. When Tim finally let his lip go Jason slid down to his knees, working Tim's pants open and shoving them down so that they showed under the bottom of the stall.

"Aaaagh!" Damian howled. "Stop it!"

"That's quite enough of that, young man," Alfred said. There was a squawk that sounded exactly like Alfred grabbing Damian's ear and tugging on it. "And I hope that you will restrain yourselves in the future."

"No promises," Jason called back. "The more he complains the more obvious and public we'll be."

He cupped Tim's rock-hard cock and smirked at the expression on Tim's face. Tim shuddered and then licked his lips before nodding. Jason laughed silently as Tim's nod of approval timed perfectly with Damian swearing in several dialects of Arabic. When Jason swallowed Tim's cock he groaned so loudly that it echoed throughout the cave.

Jason could picture Bruce's determinedly distant expression as he changed into the suit. He would be busy trying to focus on the mission and where to patrol today. Given that it was Bruce, he probably would be so successful that he wouldn't even get a hard on, unless he chanced to think of Clark and then it would be over. Steph was probably squirming as she changed in the other stall. Knowing her, she'd take twice as long as they did because she'd have to masturbate on the thought of the two of them together. She'd become something of a voyeur of their relationship, not that Jason minded all that much. It was kind of hot knowing that someone approved that much.

It was seriously fucking hot when Tim grabbed his head and started thrusting into his mouth. Jason didn't let it go too deep, not that Tim would hurt him deliberately, but it was better to be safe than sorry when they had patrol in just a few minutes. He moaned around Tim's cock as he realized that Tim would be going out oversensitive from coming, his legs trembling and his fingers shaking from pleasure.

"So good," Tim whispered and then grunted as Jason sucked twice as hard. "Oh fuck! Jason!"

Jason didn't smile but it was a close thing. He sucked harder, using his hand and twisting just so. Tim bucked and whimpered, his fingers tugging so hard on Jason's hair that it hurt. Hurt just right, exactly right to set Jason on the edge. When Tim came a few thrusts later, Jason palmed his crotch and came in his pants from the mere pressure, all the while swallowing Tim down.

"Oh my God," Tim moaned.

Steph's whimpering moan sounded from the next stall over. Tim went blindingly red but he didn't scramble his pants back on the way Jason expected. Jason smiled up at him, running a thumb over the inside of Tim's knee. He quirked an eyebrow in a silent question that Tim nodded and smiled at. He might be embarrassed but he was more or less okay.

"You need…?" Tim asked.

"Nah, too late," Jason admitted just loud enough for Steph to curse and kick the shared wall of their stalls. "Have to change my pants before we go out."

"Evil," Steph panted from her stall. "You're both evil!"

Jason laughed, kissing Tim again as Steph kicked the wall again as she came. Tim was still blushing but he was grinning at the same time. They might have patrol and Damian was still being a spoiled brat but maybe this would make him back off a little bit. Jason certainly intended to keep upping the ante until Damian stopped blocking them.

"You are evil," Tim whispered against Jason's lips.

"Nah, just very determined to make you happy," Jason whispered back. "Let's get ready. There are people to beat up and crimes to stop, after all."

"Can we start with Damian?" Tim asked facetiously.

"Nope," Jason laughed. "He tries it again and I'll do that in a room with an open door. And then in a hallway, and then in front of him if he keeps trying."

"You are _really_ evil," Tim moaned. He was so red that he looked like he was about to bleed from his pores. "If that doesn't stop him nothing will."

"It's not evil if it solves the problem," Jason said, wagging his eyebrows and smirking.

By the time they'd changed into their uniforms Damian was already out on patrol. Bruce looked as though semi-public blow jobs in the changing room were nothing to notice. Dick looked like his cup was killing him and Alfred just sighed and shook his head at the two of them.

"I shall endeavor to warn Master Damian that continued escalation will only result in more 'disgusting' activities occurring," Alfred said. "I would appreciate a bit of time to convey the message to Master Damian."

Jason exchanged a look with Tim and then shrugged. "It's not us causing the problem, Alfred. If he had any sense of personal privacy he wouldn't see anything at all. We're not making it public unless he forces the issue."

"Definitely not making anything public," Tim agreed. He slid his helmet on to hide the way his blush had crept out to make his ears glow. "Which doesn't mean I won't if that's what it takes to get him to back off. He does not get a say in my or Jason's private life."

Alfred sighed and nodded, heading upstairs to take care of the manor while they went out. Jason didn't know if it would work but hopefully it would get through to Damian eventually that they weren't budging. No matter what he thought or did, Jason wasn't giving Tim up. It still awed him that Tim felt the same way. That thought put a smile back on Jason's lips as he put his helmet on.

"So what've we got tonight, B?" Jason asked as he wrapped an arm around Tim's shoulders.

+++++

Damian glowered at Jason and Tim as they ate together. They had moved off to a corner of the kitchen to eat Alfred's chocolate chip scones, rather than sit with everyone else. He supposed that he should be grateful for their relative discretion but what he wanted to do was yell, throw things and make them _stop_. Especially as Jason laughed that incredibly, unnervingly tender laugh and bent over to kiss some chocolate off of the corner of Tim's mouth.

"Master Damian," Alfred murmured in a warning tone of voice that might have made his mother Talia hesitate.

Damian forced his shoulders back down and transferred his glare to his plate. He poked at the scone rather than eating it. The others, including Jason and Tim, finished rapidly, and departed for their morning tasks. He remained, poking at the scone while his stomach rumbled and his tea cooled.

"I fail to understand what the issue is, Master Damian," Alfred said while loading the dishwasher calmly and competently. "They are being relatively discrete and tasteful, other than that one incident in the locker room."

"It is… wrong," Damian said, attempting to find some way to convey in English just how inappropriate their relationship was. He failed entirely. There was the possibility of conveying in several other languages but Damian knew that Alfred did not speak those languages so that would not work to convey his frustration.

"Perhaps if you could explain precisely what the problem was, Master Damian?" Alfred asked in a tone that implied he was truly baffled by Damian's behavior and wouldn't let it go until he fully understood.

Damian gave his scone one last poke and then growled while staring out the window. It was so obvious what the problem was. He couldn't understand why no one else accepted that there was an issue. That sort of behavior simply wasn't appropriate between warriors, much less between putative brothers, not that Damian accepted that they were his brothers in even the loosest sense of the term.

Of course, it went much deeper than that for Damian. He had long seen Jason as what his mother wanted him to be. His grandfather had wanted Damian to be the ideal assassin, a worthy heir for the man who needed no heir. As a small boy he had realized that he would never take over the League. An immortal such as R'as al Ghul needed no heir. It was quite obvious that he saw Damian as a tool and nothing more.

Talia, however, _saw_ Damian. She saw him and had hopes for him. Her freedom to show those hopes was severely limited by the circumstances of her life, but Damian had always seen what she wanted him to be in the way that she advised him and even more clearly in the way that she had guided Jason Todd after his immersion in the Lazarus Pit.

"Damian?"

"It is difficult to convey in this language," Damian said with a frustrated sigh. "Warriors ought not do such things. It is… a weakness to invest so much of oneself in another person. You can be betrayed. Worse still, if the person you care for is injured or killed it incapacitates the warrior as well. I would have thought that Jason understood that the risk of involvement is too great. My mother taught him. He should know that he is weakening himself. It is, of course, exactly what I would expect of Drake."

Alfred nodded as if he understood exactly what Damian was saying. He took the scone, heated it in the microwave and returned it to Damian with a stern look that said that this time he would eat it. Damian grumbled but ate, nodding thanks as Alfred refreshed his tea.

"You might consider a different point of view, Master Damian," Alfred said as he added the exact correct amount of sugar to Damian's tea.

"Different?" Damian asked between bites of scone.

"Yes," Alfred said. He didn't meet Damian's eyes as he stirred his tea with characteristically precise movements. "A warrior without a heart is not a true warrior. We saw that in the other Jason. I saw for many years the problems that Master Jason had with his temper and with controlling himself. It is only since his return and Master Timothy's acceptance of him that Master Jason has matured and mastered himself. Sometimes it takes opening one's heart to master oneself."

Damian stared at Alfred, once again stunned by the flashes of wisdom that the old servant displayed. Rather than answer, Damian took his tea and sipped while he worked to control his expression. Once he thought that he could speak without sounding appallingly childish or stupid, Damian cleared his throat.

"I suppose that might be one way to interpret their relationship," Damian admitted as grudgingly as possible. He saw no reason to show that he felt rather stunned. That one unguarded expression was quite enough for one day.

"Indeed," Alfred said. His eyes twinkled with amusement that didn't translate to a smile or a chuckle, which allowed Damian to pretend that it wasn't there. "Would you like anything else for breakfast, Master Damian?"

"No, this is sufficient," Damian said in an appropriately grand tone of voice. He finished the last bite of scone and drank the dregs of his tea. As he left the kitchen, Damian turned back to Alfred whose back was turned so that he could load the last dishes into the dishwasher. "Thank you."

Damian ran from the room so that he wouldn't have to see Alfred's fond smile or hear the amused chuckle that would inevitably erupt from Alfred's mouth. While Alfred might have a point regarding Jason and Tim's relationship, Damian did not feel that invalidated his point. If something happened to Tim or to Jason, the other would be destroyed. The risk was far too high in his opinion, not that anyone else in the manor seemed to agree with him. The sheer disgusting sentimentality of their physical relationship only underscored the problem to him. They would be destroyed when one or the other was harmed. That was as inevitable as the injuries that were certain to come in the fullness of time.

+++++

Roy looked out over the city, the darkness of Gotham matching his lingering depression. It still hurt so bad that Lian was gone, but at least it was purely emotional pain rather than addiction plus phantom pain plus nanites eating him alive plus the hallucinations of his dead little girl. He held his new arm out, turning the hand over to look at it. As painful as it was to deal with the loss of Lian without any sort of chemical support, Roy thought that this new arm and everything that had come with it might be the greatest gift he'd ever been given.

"It's still there," Dick commented from behind Roy. "Hasn't gone away in the last ten minutes.

"Yeah, I know." Roy chuckled.

He did seem to check that the arm was there every few minutes. He smiled as Nightwing stepped up to stand with him at the edge of the roof. It was a much better look for Dick than the Bat suit ever had been. When Dick put his hand on Roy's new arm he could feel the textured grip of the Nightwing gloves. Roy shivered, licking his lips. Dick's grin lit up his face and he slid his hand up Roy's arm.

"Thought we were going to patrol tonight," Roy said. His voice came out husky and strange.

"In a little bit," Dick said in a voice equally husky. "Phoenix and Firebird are in the area. We're not needed at the moment."

Dick pulled Roy away from the edge and pushed him back into the stairwell. The whole time he kept rubbing his hands over Roy's arms, stroking and teasing Roy's arms unmercifully. Roy groaned and bit his lip. His arms had never been this sensitive before, though if he was honest his whole body had never been this sensitive. It was as though Jason's nanite cure had woken Roy's nervous system up to inputs it had never received before.

"Should never have admitted it to you," Roy moaned as Dick's fingers stroked Roy's arm as if it was his cock.

"Like what it does to you," Dick murmured.

"Me too but shouldn't have… oh God, don't stop!" Roy gasped.

Dick pressed a kiss against Roy's neck, then his shoulder, and then down the curve of Roy's bicep at the exact point where his actual arm left off and the prosthetic arm began. Roy couldn't tell the difference. A hint of tongue trailed along the line of Roy's elbow, sending shivers of pleasure that made Roy's cup get so tight it actually hurt. Roy smacked the wall with his other hand, biting his tongue to keep from groaning so loud that they attracted attention. Two male heroes getting it on in a stairwell would be hot news and that was the last thing Roy wanted.

"More?" Dick asked while trailing his lips along the inside of Roy's wrist.

"God, who needs anything else when I've got you?" Roy whispered. Dick grinned his wicked, needy, pleased-but-not-going-to-show-it grin.

Roy spun them so that Dick was the one pressed up against the wall. He'd long since learned how to get into Dick's pants when he was in the Nightwing suit. It was surprisingly easy, as if Dick had designed the suit for ease of access. Given how restrictive the Bat suit was he might have. Dick was as hard as Roy was, leaking and ready for Roy to wrap his new hand around Dick's cock.

"Yes," Dick hissed in Roy's shoulder.

"Like it too, don't you?" Roy mumbled into Dick's ear. He groaned as Dick's hand delved into his pants, pushing the cup out of the way so that he could give as good as he got. "Like the way it feels against you."

"Yes," Dick moaned just a little too loud for the venue. "Just different enough. Cool, slick and rough, God! Love it, fuck yes, harder!"

Roy squeezed just a tiny bit harder, giving Dick the edge of pain he seemed to need. Dick's hand with its textured glove was loose and perfect, hitting the sweet spot under the head of Roy's cock perfectly with every stroke. They rocked together and found each other's mouths when the pleasure became too much to keep quiet. Roy muffled his moans in Dick's mouth, swallowing Dick's whimpers at the same time.

It was fast and dirty instead of the longer, slower rounds that they'd had in the last several months since Roy's cure. He felt it the instant that Dick came, felt the hot rush of come over his prosthetic hand. That sensation, that blessed, incredible, impossible sensation made him shudder and come as well. They panted and slowly drew apart to get cleaned up. Roy was glad he'd included wipes in one of his pockets. That Dick had hand cleaner in his belt made Roy grin.

"Suppose we should get out there," Roy said once they'd restored their costumes to order.

"Yeah, probably," Dick said as he pulled Roy in for a quick kiss. "I kind of want to see Phoenix and Firebird in action. From the buzz on the streets everyone thinks that Phoenix is the good guy of the pair and Firebird's the one you never, ever want to mess with."

Roy blinked and then started laughing. Tim as the heavy and Jason as the good guy was quite a switch for the two of them, though Roy supposed that he could see it. Tim had that intensity and his new suit was seriously freaky. He shook his head in amazement and gestured for Dick to precede him. Somehow the night didn't seem quite as dark and gloomy now. Lian was still gone and the pain of that would stay with him for the rest of his life but he had Dick and a new arm. More importantly, he had another chance at life.

"Ready Arsenal?" Dick asked in his Nightwing voice.

"I think I am," Roy replied. "Yeah. I think I am. Let's go see what we can do, Nightwing."

Dick's grin was as blinding as if the sun had come out. They headed out across the rooftops, searching for crime and for Jason and Time in their new identities. It felt good to be doing the right thing again. After everything that had gone wrong, maybe Roy's life would finally start going right again now. With Dick at his side, Roy thought that he could make it through anything that came his way.

+++++

"Quiet night," Jason commented as they paused on a warehouse roof on the far side of the warehouse district. Rain that was so light that it was a half step above mist drifted down around them. The rain had transformed the darkened warehouses from looming hulks hiding Gotham's two-legged rats into something that was beautiful in an indistinct, distant sort of way.

"Oddly quiet," Tim said in his raspy, altered Firebird voice. "I would have expected more… action tonight."

"I think you've scared them off," Jason chuckled.

Tim stepped up to Jason's side to scan the area with the more advanced sensors in his helmet. His suit was a work of art, even if Jason did say it himself. Of course, the appearance of it was all Tim's design and that was a carefully calculated true work of art. Where Jason was being careful to play to his new 'good guy' reputation, Tim had decided to embrace his supposed antihero status in the design of his suit.

It actually wasn't that far off of the Bat suit. The cape that Tim couldn't live without extended to his ankles with a ragged edge that looked just like feathers when he flew through the air. When he was standing still, as he was now, it hung around his shoulders, giving Tim the impression of wearing a cape that had been torn and bloodied. The color was deep, almost black in the night. Jason had gotten some special pigments from the Chief and Timothy that glistened like fresh blood in lamplight. Daylight made the suit look black and burgundy. It was only at night that Tim looked like he'd been drenched in blood. Even the firebird face on his helmet was designed to creep people out. The eye slots were glowing red and the design gave the impression of drops of blood or maybe feathers if you looked closely.

"You're staring," Tim commented. The amusement in his voice transcended the voice distorter in his helmet.

"Hey, I can be proud of my handiwork, can't I?" Jason said with a cocky grin that was invisible behind his helmet's face.

Tim's amused chuckle sounded downright evil. "I've got a robbery four blocks up."

"Let's go."

They headed out, stopping the robbery and scaring the piss out of the punks breaking into the little pawnshop on 57th. Jason had to fight back guffaws of laughter as the thieves begged Jason to protect them from Tim. After zip-tying their hands behind their backs and calling the cops they headed back to the rooftops.

"You're getting a kick out of this, aren't you?" Tim asked as they continued to patrol through the misty rain.

"Your rep?" Jason asked.

"Mmm-hmm."

"Hell yes," Jason laughed. "It's kind of nice to be the good guy and I know you're enjoying the fuck out of being the heavy."

Tim laughed and settled onto a rooftop. The way his head was cocked implied one of those grins that made his eyes crinkle up and all his teeth show. Jason settled next to Tim, deliberately sliding a hand under the cape to settle on Tim's hip. Rather than push him away, Tim slid a hand under Jason's jacket, tracing the edge of his ribcage and following the line of his abs.

"We should patrol," Tim murmured even as he reached up to open his helmet. The blood red domino underneath maintained his dangerous look, though it didn't hide the shy smile that lit up Tim's face.

"It's quiet," Jason said as he pulled his helmet off too. He shook his hair, enjoying the cool mist across his face after the heat of the helmet around his head. "We can spare a minute."

"Every time we do something goes wrong." Tim snorted. He still turned his head up to meet Jason's descending lips.

Jason brushed his lips over Tim's, smiling at the way Tim chuckled. They should be patrolling. They really should, but Tim's suit and his new reputation tickled Jason's funny bone in the same way that the real person inside of the suit made Jason's libido go through the roof.

"What?" Tim murmured between deepening kisses.

"Oh, just thinking about how you're so abusing your poor partner," Jason snickered. "Poor old Phoenix getting molested by the terrible Firebird when all he wants is to make the world a better place, to protect the poor downtrodden, innocent people of Gotham."

Tim's latest kiss dissolved into laughter that set Jason off. Jason laughed with Tim as they pressed up against each other in the slowly increasing rain. The cloak did a great job keeping Jason's pants from getting soaked. The heat from Tim's hands did an equally stellar job of making those pants feel about three sizes too tight in the groin.

"Mmm, but isn't that Phoenix's way to reforming Firebird?" Tim murmured once the laughter settled down to quiet chuckles.

"I thought it was the other way around personally," Jason whispered into Tim's ear. "Wouldn't be the first time people got things wrong."

"True," Tim said with that tiny little shy smile that made Jason's heart lurch.

Tim caught Jason's cheek and pulled him down for another kiss, this time a tender one that made Jason's heart ache with awe that he actually had Tim in his life. When Tim let go, Jason thought that maybe he felt the same way from the expression on his face.

"Not that I care that much what other people think," Tim said.

He straightened his shoulders and put the helmet back on. Jason could see the moment that Tim got himself back into his Firebird role. The shy Tim Jason loved disappeared into the fierce, dangerous warrior that he was learning to adore.

"Get your helmet back on, Phoenix," Firebird said while rubbing a thumb over Jason's cheek. "I'd hate to have someone ruin that face."

"You got it, Firebird," Jason laughed. "Though I think several people already got there."

"Hey, no knocking that face," Firebird scolded in his harsh, distorted voice. "I happen to love it exactly as it is."

+++++

"God I love that suit on you."

Tim smirked inside of his helmet. They had just finished another patrol, a much quieter one than normal. Bruce was off with Clark on some sort of League mission and Dick had gone home with Roy rather than come back to the manor. Alfred had swooped in and made Damian go to bed before any harsh words could be exchanged.

"I have to admit that I'm rather fond of the suit too," Tim said as he removed his helmet.

Jason grinned at Tim. He'd already stripped off his helmet and jacket. The domino was gone, though he was idly rubbing the spots where the adhesive had stuck to his skin. Tim stalked over to Jason, using his Flamebird body language. Predictably, Jason's pants filled out as he responded to Tim's dominant behavior.

"Damian's upstairs," Tim murmured in his most gravelly voice, the one that he used to terrify criminals with before he got the voice altering circuitry in his helmet. "Everyone else is gone. We won't be interrupted."

"God yeah," Jason said. "What did you want?"

Tim wrapped a hand around Jason's neck to pull him down so that he could brush his lips over Jason's ear. As expected, the little kiss drew a heart-felt groan out of Jason. He smiled at Jason's response as he used the grip to guide Jason down to his knees. Jason hadn't yet explained what it was about Tim's new suit that inspired him to these more submissive moments but Tim wasn't about to complain. As much as he enjoyed Jason topping him, there was a great deal to say for flipping their roles.

From the huge grin on Jason's face as he ran his hands up Tim's thighs he enjoyed their occasional role flips as much as Tim did. Of course, that was such an established theme since their costumes were completed that Dick had teased Jason about it nearly to the point of getting punched in the face. As Jason mouthed Tim's groin and looked up at him while licking a stripe up Tim's crotch that made him wish he wasn't wearing a cup.

"Mine," Tim growled in his darkest voice.

"Yes," Jason moaned. His fingers clenched on Tim's thighs in a move that was so obviously involuntary that it made Tim's cup feel about three sizes too small.

"Strip," Tim ordered. "Now."

Jason's eyes drifted shut for a moment and then he stood and quickly peeled off of his clothes. Tim let his cape fall around his body, hiding his hands as he opened his pants and surreptitiously removed the cup and then gratefully freed his aching cock. Instead of letting Jason see that, he smirked as evilly as possible and nodded at Jason's proudly jutting erection.

"Stroke it," Tim growled.

Gooseflesh erupted on Jason's body, a reaction to either the ever-present chill of the cave or to doing this here, in Bruce's sanctum. It was wrong in so many ways and Tim was highly aware of it. Jason seemed equally aware of it as he slowly stroked himself, eyes locked on Tim, on Flamebird. Tim allowed his breath to speed up a little and licked his lips. Jason's pulse jumped immediately. A drop of precome dropped from the head of his dick.

"Harder."

"Oh God."

Jason's voice came out shaky and full of need. He panted, locked his knees and jacked himself hard and fast for Tim. After letting Jason go for a while, Tim stepped forward and pushed Jason down to his knees hard enough that his bare knees impacted with the floor with a crack that made Tim want to wince. He didn't allow the wince to occur. Instead he wrapped the hand not holding his cup around Jason's chin and tilted his face up. Tim was careful not to let his cape flap open as he did it so that he could surprise Jason.

"What do you want?" Tim asked.

"You," Jason answered. "Just you."

"Come here," Tim murmured.

He pulled Jason under the cape, draping it around his body so that it's silky warm enveloped Jason and protected him from sight. Jason immediately reached out to lick Tim's crotch. When he encountered Tim's naked cock he jumped and then a laugh ghosted over Tim's erection. There was a smile on Jason's lips as he sucked Tim's cock into his mouth. Tim let the cup fall to the floor so that he could rest his hands on Jason's shoulders and head to guide and control his movements.

Jason's tongue was brilliant. He used every single trick that he'd learned pleased Tim to bring Tim to the edge as quickly as possible. Tim used every trick he knew to keep from coming to extend their fun a little longer. It didn't work very well, especially once Jason slid his hands around to cup Tim's ass. His fingers squeezed just right and Tim bit down on a curse as he came abruptly in Jason's mouth.

"Love this suit," Jason murmured as he slid up Tim's body. The way he did it kept him mostly inside of Tim's cape. "Love what it does to you."

"It's not the suit," Tim said. He pulled Jason down for a kiss that was flavored with himself and then nuzzled his way along Jason's jaw until he could kiss Jason's ear and suck on his earlobe. "It's you. It's all you."

Jason made that pleased little noise that usually preceded an especially tender kiss. This was no different than the other times. Tim leaned into the kiss, rubbing against Jason's naked hip. They swayed together for a long moment, kissing the whole time, and then Jason pulled back to smile down at Tim.

"Shower and then our rooms?" Jason asked.

"How about sex in the shower and then sleep together in your room?" Tim countered.

Jason laughed and squeezed Tim's ass. "Sounds good to me. Let's do it."

+++++

"Uhf!" Tim's breath exploded out of his lungs as Jason slammed him back against the wall. Before he could catch his breath Jason's tongue forced its way into his mouth, all but raping his mouth in a kiss so intense that Tim's lips chapped and then split. It was so forceful that he saw spots before his eyes.

"Off," Jason growled before recapturing Tim's mouth for more bruising, too forceful kisses.

Tim nodded desperately, tearing at Jason's clothes and his own. They fumbled blindly at each other to get the clothes out of the way. He panted through his nose while biting Jason's lip to keep him from escaping as Jason tore his shirt off. Jason's groan made Tim's cock throb urgently. His skin felt hot to Tim's touch, as if Jason had been dosed with Ivy's pollen.

"So hot," Tim moaned in the moments it took to pull his shirt over his head and kick his pants and shoes off.

"Fucking sexy," Jason agreed.

He grabbed Tim and shoved him towards the bed. They hadn't managed to make it back to Jason's room, instead dodging into Tim's room. The floor was clear of anything other than their discarded clothes, which made the struggle to keep kissing while moving to the bed easier. If it had been Jason's room they probably would have ended up on their asses.

Jason tasted of marinara sauce and spinach salad with a slight hint of the red wine they'd shared at dinner. A faint hint of blood could have come from Tim's lip or maybe from Jason's. Their kisses were forceful enough that it could be either of them. Tim didn't care. He wanted bed, now.

They toppled onto the bed together, Tim underneath Jason's bulk. The impact drove the air out of Tim's lungs again. Jason groaned at the feel of Tim naked and squirming underneath him. He pulled back enough that Tim could gasp a lungful of air. Jason was right there to kiss the breath back out of him. Between his lips and the feeling of Jason's cock rubbing against Tim, the breath might as well not have existed.

Tim scrambled blindly for the lube that they kept on his bedside table. It was mostly fully as they spent most of their 'play' time in Jason's room. Unlike the other one, which regularly skittered away when Tim tried to grab it, it stayed in place for long enough for Tim to get his fingers around it. He tapped Jason's shoulder with it, earning a grumble at the coolness of the plastic tube.

"Lube, now!" Tim mumbled into the kiss.

"Nghrph," Jason mumbled back, or at least that's what it sounded like to Tim.

Jason reared up enough to push Tim's legs back towards his chest with one hand as he snagged the lube and popped it open. Tim moaned at the two fingers Jason immediately shoved into his ass. Slicked with lube or not, it burned in all the right ways, especially when Jason curled his fingers to massage his prostate.

"More, more, more, more," Tim panted.

He fisted his fingers in Jason's hair so that he could shove Jason's mouth down to a nipple. Jason obligingly bit hard enough to make Tim yelp. His eyes were hot as he did it again, earning another yelp and a moan from Tim.

"Want you," Jason growled around Tim's nipple.

"Do it!" Tim snapped in a voice that was too high to be his Firebird voice but which still held the proper note of command.

Jason let go of the nipple, pulled his fingers out to slick his cock as quickly as humanly possible and then he shoved into Tim so hard and fast that the air disappeared from Tim's lungs yet again. He pulled back and plunged in again, again, and again, driving Tim into the mattress so hard that Tim fancied that he'd have imprints of the duvet's stitching on his back for days.

As Jason pounded him, Tim's fingers clamped down on his arms to urge him on. The slight pain of being taken so hard was swamped by the pleasure Jason gave him, to the point that Tim barely cared that he'd be hurting tomorrow. It felt good, too good, especially since he could look up at Jason's face and see the desperately tender, needy expression there.

"Love you," Tim mouthed at Jason because he couldn't get enough air to be able to say the words out loud.

Jason shouted and came so hard that his eyes snapped shut and his head went back from the force of his orgasm. The look on Jason's face combined with his rocking against Tim's ass abruptly shoved Tim over the edge so that he came too. They stayed in the pose for an endless few seconds, Jason poised above Tim, holding his legs down, and then Jason collapsed on top of Tim in a sweaty, panting heap.

Tim moaned and wrapped his arms and legs around Jason so that he would stay exactly where he was. It was still hard to breath but Tim didn't care. He liked the feeling of Jason's weight on top of him and the hot moistness of his breath puffing into the corner of Tim's neck. Eventually Jason's cock softened and he slipped out. Neither of them moved for a long moment.

"Fucking hell," Jason moaned as he finally moved off to Tim's right side. "Okay?"

"Oh yeah," Tim sighed, gulping lungs full of air now that he could. "Fine. Better than fine. Wow."

"Shower?" Jason asked while running his fingers through the come on Tim's stomach.

"In a minute," Tim murmured. He grabbed a tissue and wiped himself and Jason off before tugging Jason under the covers with him. "Or longer."

Jason laughed and rolled so that Tim was draped on top of him. His eyes sparked with love and amusement as he grinned up at Tim. There was an obvious split on one corner of his bottom lip. Like Tim's lips, Jason's looked swollen and tender. Tim wanted to lean down and kiss him again, to feel Jason's tongue exploring his teeth and mouth, taking possession of him.

"More?" Tim asked hopefully.

"Anything you want," Jason growled in his old Red Hood voice. When combined with that grin and the desperate look of love in his eyes it was the hottest thing that Tim had ever experienced.

"More!" Tim snapped, recapturing Jason's lips for more kisses, more sex, more everything.


End file.
